“We all know, in fact, that the insane.... derive a great deal of comfort and consolation from their imagination, that they enjoy their madness sufficiently to endure the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. And, indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure… These people are honest to a fault, and their 'naiveté' has no peer but my own. Christopher Columbus should have set out to discover America with a boatload of madmen. And note how this madness has taken shape, and endured.”

“Initially, I think it was a desperate need for validation. Once I became more comfortable in my own skin, I discovered I enjoyed performance for its own sake, and the challenges that come from creating characters and making them believable. Or at least memorable.”

“There is a pleasure sure
In being mad which none but madmen know.”

“When dealing with ancient sources, we cannot be content to know the religious and social settings out of which these sources have come. We should also know something about how the ancients viewed the writing of history and biography, for in the Gospels and Acts apparently we are dealing with three ancient biographies and one two-volume historical monograph”

“We are in danger of forgetting that God is not only a comfort but a joy. He is the source of all pleasures; he is fun and laughter, and we are meant to enjoy him.”

“If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others.”

“Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

“Columbus, I guess it all did start with Columbus. … To me he was like a virus, a disease. I spent a lot of time protesting, trying to figure out how to deal with this disease. I think we really need to put serious thought into understanding that we're dealing with a disease.”

“All men are mad in some way or another, and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen too, the rest of the world.”

“It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" -- that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.”