“I am an unpopular electric eel in a pool of catfish.”
Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet
Life magazine (4 January 1963) attributed variant: I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.
Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician
An Oral History of Popular Music (1989)
“People like eccentrics and they will therefore leave me alone, saying that I am a "mad clown."”
Vaslav Nijinsky (1889–1950) Russian ballet dancer and choreographer
As quoted in Vaslav Nijinsky : A Leap into Madness by Peter F. Ostwald, Ch. 8: Playing the Role of a Madman, p. 176
Unsourced variant: I know everyone will say "Nijinsky has gone mad," but I don’t care because I have already played the mad man at home. That is what everyone will think, but they won’t put me in an insane asylum because I dance very well and give money to anyone who asks. People like eccentrics, so they will leave me alone and say I’m a mad clown. I like the mentally ill because I know how to talk to them. When my brother was in an insane asylum, I loved him and he could feel me. His friends liked me. I was eighteen then. I understood the life of a mentally ill person.
Maia Mitchell (1993) Australian actress
As quoted in "Maia Mitchell: My Audition For ‘The Fosters’ Was ‘Crap’" by Sean Daly at The TV Page (20 January 2014) I'm sexy.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)
In his letter to Theo, from The Hague, 21 July 1882, http://www.vggallery.com/letters/245_V-T_218.pdf <br class="br">1880s, 1882 <br class="br">Context: What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.<br>That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.<br>Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.
Alfred Denning, Baron Denning (1899–1999) British judge
Interview (16 August 1990), quoted in The Times (17 August 1990), p. 1
Murray Walker (1923) Motorsport commentator and journalist
Byron Young (November 9, 1997) "Schu dirty rats! - Motor racing", News of the World, Section: Sport, p. 63.
Interviews
Mary Wollstonecraft book Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
Letter 17
Letters Written in Sweden (1796)
Context: Affection requires a firmer foundation than sympathy, and few people have a principle of action sufficiently stable to produce rectitude of feeling; for in spite of all the arguments I have heard to justify deviations from duty, I am persuaded that even the most spontaneous sensations are more under the direction of principle than weak people are willing to allow.
Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) Royal Navy Admiral
Letter to his mistress, Lady Hamilton (1800) [citation needed]; derived from "But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive." by William Shakespeare, in Henry V
1800s
