#madness

Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and the ignorance of the future.. ↗

— Charles Mackay

#madness #death

I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger ... cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle ... or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words ... only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, "Why?" I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be! ↗

— Dale Wasserman

#dreams

Gavin, I can’t talk to you here. People will call me crazy." My imaginary friend smirked. "But you’re already talking to me." "Well, I have to stop." His smirk grew cocky. "I doubt you can resist." And he was right. There was nothing I wanted more than to give my full attention to an imagined shadow and ignore those who ignored me in the real world. I wanted to talk out loud to Gavin--to play and laugh boisterously with him. In a dream I could justify such behavior, but to succumb to hallucinations while wide awake would only prove me insane. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#imaginary-friend #longing #love #madness #richelle

All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. ↗

— Yann Martel

#strange #life

Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever. They were not perfect, but they were my friends. ↗

— Susanna Kaysen

#friendship #insanity #madness #friendship

We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter ↗

— Allen Ginsberg

#loyalty #madness #mental-illness #writing #friendship

When you are mad, mad like this, you don't know it. Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else's reality, it's still reality to you. ↗

— Marya Hornbacher

#madness #manic-depression #mental-illness #reality #life

Soon madness has worn you down. It’s easier to do what it says than argue. In this way, it takes over your mind. You no longer know where it ends and you begin. You believe anything it says. You do what it tells you, no matter how extreme or absurd. If it says you’re worthless, you agree. You plead for it to stop. You promise to behave. You are on your knees before it, and it laughs. ↗

— Marya Hornbacher

#eating-disorder #madness #surrender #voice #worthless

Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth. ↗

— Douglas Adams

#madness #sofa #life

When your efforts run in the face of conventional wisdom and accepted mastery, persistence can look like madness. If you succeed in the end, this extreme originality reformulates into a new level of mastery, sometimes even genius; if you fail in the end, you remain a madman in the eyes of others, and maybe even yourself. When you are in the midst of the journey…there’s really no way of knowing which one you are.” (p.129) ↗

— Hilary Austen

#conventional-wisdom #effort #extreme-originality #genius #journey