Quotes About Madness

I had noticed that both in the very poor and very rich extremes of society the mad were often allowed to mingle freely.

you've got to burn straight up and down and then maybe sidewise for a while and have your guts scrambled by a bully and the demonic ladies, you've got to run along the edge of madness teetering, you've got to starve like a winter alleycat, you've go to live with the imbecility of at least a dozen cities, then maybe maybe maybe you might know where you are for a tiny blinking moment.

she' mad but she' magic. there' no lie in her fire.

The crazy ones only laugh when there is no reason to laugh.

I thought you were sane, I said, but you're just as crazy as the rest of them.

What's genius? I don't know but I do know that the difference between a madman and a professional is that a pro does as well as he can within what he has set out to do and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing.

To create art means to be crazy alone forever.

There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity.

t was almost disappointing because it seemed when stress and madness were eliminated from my daily life there wasn't much left you could depend on.

It is possible to be truly mad and to still exist upon scraps of life.

No wonder Van Gogh blasted his head off. Crows and sunlight. Idle zero. Zero eating your guts like an animal inside, letting you shit and fuck and blink your eyes, but nothing, a nothing.

why don't we go back out there and tell them what happened? because nothing happened except that everybody has been driven insane and stupid by life. in this society there are only two things that count: don't be caught without money and don't get caught high on any kind of high. (Night Streets of Madness)

if you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.

a pro does as well as he can within what he has set out to do and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing.

And remember the old dogs who fought so well: Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun. If you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.

Insanity is relative. Who sets the norm?

We're forced into absurd lives, against which the only sane response is to wage a guerrilla operation of humour and lust and madness.

And if there is anybody out there who is crazy enough to want to become a writer, I'd say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it's the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us.

madhouses are rarely on display.

I know I went mad, almost as an act of theory: the lost are found the sick are healthy the non-creators are the creators.

luckily, I found a few other crazed men who almost remained that way until they died.

She's mad but she's magic. There's no lie in her fire.

why it's so hard to go crazy— if you're not already crazy

I don't know how he does it but every woman he meets is crazy. he will get rid of one crazy woman but he never gets any relief— another crazy moves right in with him. it's only after they move in and begin acting more than strange that they admit to him that they've done madhouse time or that their families have a long history of mental illness.