#insanity

Louisiana is a fresh-air mental asylum. ↗

— James Lee Burke

#insanity #louisiana #humor

I was cautious in what I said before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane; and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes that half led me to imagine she was not. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#insanity #sanity #short-story #imagination

and then I decided I was a lemon for a couple of weeks. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#ford #insanity #lemons #life

We never end up with the book we began writing. Characters twist it and turn it until they get the life that is perfect for them. A good writer won't waste their time arguing with the characters they create...It is almost always a waste of time and people tend to stare when you do! ↗

— C.K. Webb

#ck-webb #editing #insanity #re-writing #life

I took a few dragging steps toward the locker-room door. 'You're doing something to me that I wouldn't do to a dog,' I mumbled. 'What you're doing to me is worse than if you were to kill me. You're locking me up in shadows for the rest of my life. You're taking my mind away from me. You're condemning me slowly but surely to madness, to being without a mind. It won't happen right away, but sooner or later, in six months or in a year - Well, I guess that's that.' I fumbled my way out of the locker room and down the passageway outside, guiding myself with one arm along the wall, and past the sergeant's desk and down the steps, and then I was out in the street. ("All At Once, No Alice") ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#madness #life

Oh, and I certainly don't suffer from schizophrenia. I quite enjoy it. And so do I. ↗

— Emilie Autumn

#schizophrenia #suffering

Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded... ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#sanity #wise

Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” “Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. “No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?” “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter ↗

— Lewis Carroll

#insanity #madness #idea

Did you know that childhood is the only time in our lives when insanity is not only permitted to us, but expected? ↗

— Louis de Bernières

#insanity #childhood

To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been. And to protect their delicate vision of that other time, madmen will justify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distractive schemes. These schemes, in turn, drive them deeper and deeper into the darkness and light (which is their mortification and their reward), and confront them with a choice. They may either slacken and fall back, accepting the relief of a rational view and the approval of others, or they may push on, and, by falling, arise. When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane. They are called saints. ↗

— Mark Helprin

#loyalty