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I try to build up people, not break them down, and in politics, it seems now the game is breaking down your opponents.

I turned 65 and thought, 'Oh my God, I'm a senior. How did this happen?'

The first thing that happens to someone with a mental illness, in the throes of it, is that they lose all their self-esteem. They don't think they fit in.

I've had so many rich, rich, beautiful things happen to me in my life because I do have energy, and I do reach out, and I stretch my eyes.

I have worked hard to become happy. It was a real struggle.

The main thing that triggered my depression was my isolation that was imposed on me by becoming the wife of the prime minister, and leaving my home, my family. I was young, very young, and very naive and very hopeful and enthusiastic about my wonderful new life, but it was the loneliness and the lack of being able to properly relate to people.

I can only ask people to be tolerant of the fact that the... pressures of wives of politicians is very, very strong.

I think I devoted my life to Pierre Trudeau and our beautiful children.

Our youth-oriented society does not have a clearly defined place for the older woman.

Do you know what prepares you for the mental hospital? Being a prime minister's wife.

I love the life I've had.

My life has been extreme. Most people will not have the experience I've had. But the things that changed me, really changed me, they happen to everyone.

I'm pretty much an out-front, straightforward chick, and I get a bit confused by expectations.

My honesty about mental illness has helped open a door for real conversation, and I think Justin wants to continue that conversation. He has put no restrictions on me. His father couldn't. Why should he try?

Suddenly I turned 65 and realized, 'Oh my goodness, I'm old.' I think it was when I got into the movie theatres cheaper.

Mania is the most destructive of the forces. Everybody around you will tell you you're in trouble, and you can't hear what they are saying.

I am a free spirit that must survive in a free world.

I tried during the 1974 campaign to show my husband not as the aloof intellectual people think he is, but the warm, passionate man I know. But the day after the election - after I'd worked so hard - I was put back on the shelf. I was devastated.