#insanity

To be sane, he held, was either to be sedated by melancholy or activated by hysteria, two responses which were 'always and equally warranted for those of sound insight'. All others were irrational, merely symptoms of imaginations left idle, of memories out of work. And above these mundane responses, the only elevation allowable, the only valid transcendence, was a sardonic one: a bliss that annihilated the universe with jeers of dark joy, a mindful ecstasy. Anything else in the way of 'mysticism' was a sign of deviation or distraction, and a heresy to the obvious. (“The Medusa”) ↗

— Thomas Ligotti

#insanity #melancholy #mysticism #sanity #sardonic

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. ↗

— Oscar Levant

#erased #fine #fine line #genius #i

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. ↗

— Narcotics Anonymous

#insanity #life #misattributed-albert-einstein #humor

The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept. ↗

— George Carlin

#insanity #lies #lying #self-indulgence #truth

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you. ↗

— Rita Mae Brown

#insanity #humor

We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#harry-dresden #humor #insanity #humor

I watched the black ocean in his eyes and saw this flash behind them and understood what he had meant the night before, about the insanity that had gripped him. He was not so far gone as to be lost, but he was close, and I knew it had come from me turning my back on him as I had started to flee. Whether I wanted to or not, I anchored him to this world, and I was the only thing he'd known, maybe for his whole life. He had watched me, yes, he had stalked me, oh yes, but it had driven him to the edge. I inhaled sharply at the wildness I saw in him, the despair that was threatening to rise. ↗

— T.J. Klune

#insanity #life

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked ↗

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

#logic #mind #logic

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