Madness Quotes

Sometimes I stare into a pool of piss, I see my reflection, I picture a hole in my face, there’s nothing there, it’s vanished. I watch the maggots turn to flies, and they fly off with bits of flesh from my body. I attempt to wipe it clear from my mind, but the nice thoughts get swallowed up. I can’t think nice for too long…it would destroy me.

~ Stephen Richards

Unlike most I don’t fear prison, never have, never will. Obviously I don’t want it, I hate it, but it’s the hate that drives me on to survive.

~ Stephen Richards

Some of the madmen are really fun to be with. I soon learnt to relate to them. I soon became one of them. I ended up the maddest of the mad. There is no madder than myself! Please believe it.

~ Stephen Richards

A madman overcomes it by adapting to his surroundings. You can’t give up. Why die? There is always another mission, it’s the missions that keep you alive.

~ Stephen Richards

Take outside - freedom. What is it? What does it mean to a madman? I’ll tell you, we go years through a lifetime with no love, no sex, no nice food and no nice clothes. So when it comes…we choke on it! The kindness strangles us; we can’t cope, so we make pigs of ourselves.

~ Stephen Richards

Madness is a bowl of poison cherries, chew them and die, but you die screaming in agony.

~ Stephen Richards

A doctor once asked me: 'Charlie, what do you think your problem is?' “Doc,' I said, '…you’re the problem!

~ Stephen Richards

You get used to the brain being squeezed. At nighttime in the darkness of your emptiness, it seems to swell back up and gives you some peace. In the darkness even the pain is not so bad. A bruise heals. (Time is the treatment.) But it’s your mind that’s tortured. Your thoughts are in turmoil and despair. Feelings of awesome revenge and destruction manifest themselves.

~ Stephen Richards

I personally could never come to terms with my label of ‘Criminally Insane’. Just because of my violent outbursts in prison, don’t mean to say I’m mad. Obviously I had become a disruptive element within the penal system. Uncontrollable! Unpredictable! But that don’t make insanity!

~ Stephen Richards

You’ve been inexpressibly lucky,” he said finally. “And inexpressibly mad, although in your case the two seem to be the same thing

~ Naomi Novik

There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?”“Perhaps,” Achilles admitted.I listened and did not speak. Achilles’ eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know it in dark or disguise, I told myself. I would know it even in madness.

~ Madeline Miller

Oh the madness of battle! We fear it, we celebrate it, the poets sing of it, and when it fills the blood like fire it is a real madness. It is joy! All the terror is swept away, a man feels he could live for ever, he sees the enemy retreating, knows he himself is invincible, that even the gods would shrink from his blade and his bloodied shield. And I was still keening that mad song, the battle song of slaughter, the sound that blotted out the screams of dying men and the crying of the wounded. It is fear, of course, that feeds the battle madness, the release of fear into savagery. You win in the shield wall by being more savage than your enemy, by turning his savagery back into fear.

~ Bernard Cornwell

When I say the things that don't make sense you answer me anyway. It's like having green in your shirt.

~ Mindy Mcginnis

We are all just illusions of what we want the world to believe about us, no one even begins to assume what lurks below my surface, not even my best friends. ~Callum~

~ A.giannoccaro

There is something maddening about mediocrity that calls forth the worst in those who are forced to deal with it.

~ Moss Hart

Never had a decent report in his life! Tony repeated, hardly able to believe the words. He was thinking, in shocked surprise, that even Tante Bettina did not know how mad the English could be.

~ Constance Savery

Just imagine, you’re on a stretcher in the hospital, being wheeled to the operating theatre, they inject you, put you to sleep…anaesthetic. You drift into blackness, you’re out and you’re the closest yet to death. Then a surgeon cuts into your body, rips you open, goes deep inside. Looks within, pulls a bit out, puts bits in, sews you up. Then! If you’re lucky, you awake! Some don’t wake, this is my point, will you wake? Why should you? How can you? That’s the black hole of madness you’re in! Screaming to get out: ‘Alive’ or just ‘Sane’! You want out of it, you want to see the light!

~ Stephen Richards

You can grow up being a troublemaker and then before you know it the next thing you’re doing is listening to Frank Zappa whilst chilling out…now that’s the intelligent way out. What would a psychiatrist say about that?

~ Stephen Richards

Just take my advice and stay away from those psychiatrists they’re dangerous. And if you’re 13 years old and sitting in front of one do what I never…chin him ‘cos if you don’t you’ll live to regret it. You talk to your mum and dad (they know you best) and keep your problems in the family.

~ Stephen Richards

Is Bronson mad! Let me ask you! How else can I be? I’m probably the maddest guy on two legs if the truth was known, but prison will never beat me, I’d sooner die today than allow it too!

~ Stephen Richards

Ever see moors murderer Ian Brady, study his photos, study Black, study Cannon, study Sutcliffe - study them all! Who says evil is not recognisable?

~ Stephen Richards

Insanity can be a heavy cross to bear; I mean look at all those people in loony bins compared to those that are free and walking the streets – a tiny percentage are classed as mad. The incidence of mental problems amongst people is said to be rising, so what do they go and do, they cut the amount of asylums by half! Whoever makes these decisions has to be a loon and a half!

~ Stephen Richards

There are different categories of madmen, and different types of asylums! I know absolutely nothing about the asylums that house the madman who thinks he is a space man. Would you believe that 90% of madmen are treated in outside clinics?

~ Stephen Richards

Ask anybody, would you want an ex-madman living next door? It’s difficult enough being an ex-convict. It’s double hard for us ‘madmen’. Please believe it.

~ Stephen Richards

They ask themselves: “What will he do?” “How will he react?” “Will he go mad?” “Will he bite?” “Will he be armed?” They’re pumped up with fear. Adrenaline pumping, fingers tense on the trigger, brains racing. And I’m cool as a cat! The name ‘Charles Bronson’ causes panic! The name ‘Mickey Peterson’ causes stress! The police all love to arrest me, as I’m the most exciting madman they will ever arrest! It’s a fact. So here I am years later, and I’m still the madman. There is no escaping my past.

~ Stephen Richards

Looking back at the years I spent in the asylums, I’m now convinced some of that insanity rubbed off onto me!

~ Stephen Richards

Mad people are very emotionally orientated! They have complex feelings, they’re easily upset, but are also easy to please! Most mad people have lonely lives, as nobody understands them. So they become “Lost Souls.” They dream a lot. Go within their minds to search - some will turn strange, become dangerous. So a madman is created! His world becomes a mission.

~ Stephen Richards

It occurred to me then that the man might not be mad, I found this far more disquieting than the alternative.

~ Neil Gaiman

There's a pleasure being mad that only the madman knows.

~ Elly Griffiths

Amid the pointing and the horror the clean flame.

~ William Faulkner

To stay sane in a mad world is the real victory.

~ Marty Rubin

Amid the pointing and the horror, the clean flame.

~ William Faulkner

Crushes are more beautiful than affairs because there is no responsibility, no worry, no commitment. Just look at your crush and smile like an idiot.

~ Srinivas Shenoy

In the gray world above, I hear myself howling with laughter. Far below me, in the psychic abyss that is part of the Darkness, I hear another howling, one full of joy and pain, rage and celebration.Not just another witch is coming, my foolish Sisters, but Witch.

~ Anne Bishop

To remain sane in a mad world is the true victory.

~ Marty Rubin

What might happen if we could somehow reorient ourselves toward our more loving, bonobo side rather than our inner mad chimpanzee?

~ Susan Block

In how many minds should I go crazy? Whom should I ask?

~ Suman Pokhrel

If you haven’t lost your mind yet, that’s because you haven’t seen very much.

~ Yasmina Khadra

Love is a madman,working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes,running through the mountains, drinking poison,and now quietly choosing annihilation.

~ Jalaluddin Rumi

Only a mind that is deeply stirred can utter something noble and beyond the power of others.

~ Seneca