Quotes About Madness

In certain cases, a man blind from birth may have an operation performed which gives him his sight. The result: frequently misery, confusion, disorientation. The light that illumines the madman is an unearthly light, but I do not believe it is a projection, an emanation from his mundane ego. He is irradiated by a light that is more than he. It may burn him out.

In describing one way of going mad, I shall try to show that there is a comprehensible transition from the sane schizoid way of being-in-the-world to a psychotic way of being-in-the-world.

A person could be driven mad by hate. It was a force as destructive as any Mesarthim gift, and harder to end than a god. The gods had been dead for fifteen years, after all, but their hate had lingered, and ruled in their stead.

The past and the future were just blinders we wore so that infinity wouldn't drive us mad.

Dream not ... of having tasted all the grandeur and wildness of fancy till you have gone mad!

And I think that you do not understand that sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.

Sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.

One minute you're munching on a faerie plum the next minute you're running naked down Madison Avenue with antlers on your head. Not,' he added hastily, 'that this has ever happened to me.

Demons feed on death and pain madness," Valentine said. "When I kill, it is because I must. You grew up in a falsely beautiful paradise surrounded by fragile glass walls, my daughter. Your mother created the world she wanted to live in and she brought you up in it, but she never told you it was an illusion. And all the time the demons waited with their weapons of blood and terror to smash the glass and pull you free of the lie.

In the words of Euripides, 'those whom the Gods wish to destroy, first they make mad'.

Hebrew monotheism also dictated that madness, like physical illness, was a punishment from God. Deuteronomy named insanity as one of the many curses that God will inflict on those who do not obey him (along with haemorrhoids, the scab and the itch).13

the term 'lunatic' derives from luna, the Latin word for moon). Many writers, from antiquity onwards, maintained that the mad were directly affected by the phases of the moon, with the full moon being the cause of the greatest agitation.

Burton makes it quite clear that the 'distinguished' nature of melancholy makes it superior to other forms of madness, as evidence of a refined nature. It is melancholy, after all, which afflicts scholars and poets: 'Melancholy men of all others are most witty.'32 Despite the drawbacks of the condition, his ambivalent attitude prefigures that of many modern depressives, who regard the disease as an essential component of their character, even their creativity.

The situation collapsed completely at dinner one September evening. Perhaps it was the full moon that drove me to madness, or the gnawing, relentless emptiness of my heart. Whatever the trigger, the powder had been well packed, and my explosion, though shocking, was not altogether unexpected.

For grace may only be found briefly, and always in the midst of madness.

She always gave the impression of having accidentally wandered in from a mad scientist's conference, and felt rather desperate to get back.

When it was all done and said and shot and ignited and vaporized and swept up and put away and both sincerely and insincerely apologized for, everyone left standing knew that the galaxy could not bear a second go at this sort of thing. Something had to be done. Something mad and real and bright.

When the madness came, he would be like a man staggering along the rim of the abyss – which was his rage – and when the edge gave way or he missed his step, he might clutch at anyone within reach and drag that person with him over the precipice.

I think the seeds of my love were planted there, in the ground that my father's madness harrowed.

I have become involved with thinking and acting without the help of an ideology; I have nothing that helps me, no idea that I serve and am known for . . . no rules that regulate the how, no belief that gives me direction, no picture of the future, no instruction that produces an overly ordered mind. I acknowledge only what is and, accordingly, regard every description and configuration of that which we don't know as madness. Ideologues seduce and exploit uncertainty, legitimize war.

Studerer man lenge nok de bibelske lignelser, lukkes sjelen gradvis inne i vanviddets labyrint.

I have loved women even to madness, but I have always loved liberty better.

Il confine che separa i matti dai normali ci sembra netto, consistente, difficile da valicare. Invece è sottilissimo e in alcuni punti - in alcuni momenti - sfuma senza che ce ne accorgiamo. Ci troviamo nel territorio dei pazzi senza capire com'è successo - e del resto i pazzi lo sanno di essere da quelle parti?

His voice went flat. "They criticized me," he said. "The criticized me for the way I went about things, my dreams." His voice became like still water, like a nest of sleeping snakes, and you could feel the mad wrath contained within that voice. "They always criticized me, even when I did big things. I'm doing a big thing now. They won't criticize me. If they do, I'll kill them. Ignorance. There's no room for it in my plans. No room.