Quotes About Madness

I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and as I knew I was a madman—at times anyhow—I resolved to use my power.

How well the man reasoned. Lunatics always do within their own scope.

Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him!

Fairies do not make a strong distinction between the animate and the inanimate. They believe that stones, doors, trees, fire, clouds and so forth all have souls and desires, and are either masculine or feminine. Perhaps this explains the extraordinary sympathy for madness which fairies exhibit. For example, it used to be well known that when fairies hid themselves from general sight, lunatics were often able to perceive them. The

She lived quite alone and whether the fault was hers or whether the fault was theirs I do not know. And a great deal of time went by and she did not speak to a living soul and a great wind of madness howled through her and overturned all her languages. And she forgot Italian, forgot English, forgot Latin, forgot Basque, forgot Welsh, forgot every thing in the world except Cat – and that, it is said, she spoke marvellously well.

Excess of grief may bring on quite as fine a bout of madness an an excess of any thing else. Truth to tell, I was not quite myself for a time. Truth to tell, I was a little wild.

But nothing, I find, has prepared me for the sight of my own characters walking about. A playwright or screenwriter must expect it; a novelist doesn't and naturally concludes that she has gone mad. (What do they need so many umbrellas for? Don't they realise that they are imaginary?)

Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics – in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad.

I left the Embrace of the Faun and wandered miserably through the House. I believed that I was mad – or that I had been mad – or else that I was becoming mad now. Whichever way it was, it was a terrifying prospect. After a while I decided that this way of going on did no good at all.

What is it about meter and cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad?

I got better and Daisy didn't and I can't explain why. Maybe I was just flirting with madness the way I flirted with my teachers and my classmates. I wasn't convinced I was crazy, though I feared I was. Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a mark of sanity, but I'm not sure that's true.

Maybe I was just flirting with madness the way I flirted with my teachers and my classmates.

Sana di mente in un mondo di pazzi.

Our hospital was famous and had housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers, or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness?

Insanity comes in two basic varieties: slow and fast.

a tidal wave of blackness broke over her head. The entire world was obliterated–for a few minutes. She knew she had gone crazy. She looked around the theater to see if it had happened to everyone, but all the other people were engrossed in the movie. She rushed out, because the darkness in the theater was too much combined with the darkness in her head.

A volte, quando avete capito che il vostro treno non si sta veramente muovendo, potete passare un altro mezzo minuto sospesi tra due regni della coscienza: quello che sa che non vi state muovendo e quello che invece ne ha la sensazione. Potete svolazzare avanti e indietro tra queste percezioni e provare una specie di vertigine mentale. E se è così, siete nel territorio della pazzia: un luogo dove le false impressioni hanno tutte le caratteristiche della realtà.

Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers, or was it that the poets and singers specialized in madness?

The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy

I am going insane. Yes. That is what´s happening. Good. Insane.

But now persecution is good, because it exists; every law which originated in ignorance and malice, and gratifies the passions from whence it sprang, we call the wisdom of our ancestors: when such laws are repealed, they will be cruelty and madness; till they are repealed, they are policy and caution.

If I was any more pleased with you, I would lose what little remains of my sanity.

You guys are whackjobs separately. Together, you're a Goddamn nuthouse.

Is it the sea you hear in me? Its dissatisfactions? Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness? Love is a shadow. How you lie and cry after it. --from Elm, written 19 April 1962