Part One, Ch. 1
On the Road (1957)
Context: They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
“Mad people = People who stand alone and burn.
I'm attracted to them because they give me permission to do the same.”
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Susan Sontag 168
American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist 1933–2004Related quotes
“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
Freedom From Religion Foundation, 21/10/2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6WByhz44EA&t=4m25s
2000s, 2007
“No, I'm a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don't, I don't.”
Source: Nothing to Lose
On the rumours about his sexuality.
Shawn Mendes: ‘I’m 20. I want to have fun’, The Guardian, April 07, 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/apr/07/shawn-mendes-im-20-i-want-to-have-fun-interview-social-media,
Interview in The Observer http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2067715,00.html 29 April 2007
“People like eccentrics and they will therefore leave me alone, saying that I am a "mad clown."”
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.
Speech on immigration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdL2k8jbnAs (24 June 2009), quoted in "Schumer talks tough on immigration reform issue" https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/schumer-talks-tough-on-immigration-reform-issue-1.1868825 by Tom Brune, Newsday.com (18 April 2010)