Quotes about crazy
page 3

“Is it crazy right now to say I love you?” She didn’t even pause. “Given that I just stabbed you? Seems a little weird, yeah.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Black Dawn

Love

“But sometimes normal just isn't happening. Sometimes crazy feels too good to resist.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

Feeling

“I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Life, People, Dreams, Way

“Anyone can be crazy. That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

Hate, Suicide

“There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

World

“Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other.”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

Memory, Forgetting

“You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

“Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others…
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

From the Preface to the 1855 edition of <i>Leaves of Grass</i>
Context: This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body. . . .
Context: This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.... The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed and manured.... others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches.... and shall master all attachment.

Love, Stupidity, Sun, Animals

“It was a matter of perspective, I began to see.
The whole world was crazy; I'd flattered myself by assuming I was a semifinalist."
-- Dolores Price”

Wally Lamb book She's Come Undone

Source: She's Come Undone

World

“There is the old catch-22 line that a mentally unstable person can't know, as per their illness, that they are unstable. But that was wrong. You can and do have the insight to see your own crazy.”

Harlan Coben Hold Tight

Source: Hold Tight

Personality

“if you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Women, Food, Hope, Thinking

“Bein Crazy
is the least of my worries.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: Book of Blues

“He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Variant: Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 25
Context: While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

World, Hurt

“Do you think if people knew how crazy you really were, no one would ever talk to you?”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People, Thinking

“My friends are gone and my hair is grey.
I ache in places I used to play.
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on.
I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: Dance Me to the End of Love

Love

“This is making me crazy. I hate relying on other people to save me, I hate being clingy, I hate it, and every time you show up, I lean on you. - Matilda Scarlet Veronica Betty Vilma Goodnight”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Source: Faking It

Hate, People, Time

“I'm never going to get married."
"You're crazy." Buddy brightened. "You'll change your mind."
"No. My mind's made up.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Change

“I used to believe my father about everything but then I had children myself & now I see how much stuff you make up just to keep yourself from going crazy.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Children

“Crazy Curran ranked right up there with monsoons, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Nature

“You're crazy, you know that?"
"Yes. But I'm a demon in the sack."
I laughed. "Okay then. That fixes everything."
"That's right, it does.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

“The crazy people of the world… shouldn't get to win. If God won't make it better after they do have their shitty little victories, then ordinary people have to. They have to try, at least.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

God, People, World, Victory

“Stand up for the Crazy and Stupid”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Stupidity

“ARE YOU CRAZY?" I ASKED.
He gave me the same wordless look he always did when I asked that question.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Question

“What's crazy is living your life according to some book written by someone who couldn't imagine what your life would be like.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Life, Books, Imagination

“She looked at him with loathing. "I knew you were crazy," she said. "But I didn't realize you were absolutely, spectactularly out of your goddamned mind.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Crazy people are not crazy if one accepts their reasoning.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Of Love and Other Demons

Source: Of Love and Other Demons

People

“We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Love, World, Fear, Imagination

“You won’t let me buy any clothes. Now you won’t let me buy a road map, either!
I need to spend some money or I’m going to go crazy!”

Sophie Kinsella book Mini Shopaholic

Source: Mini Shopaholic

Money, Clothes

“The crazy ones only laugh when there is no reason to laugh.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“I've got a black-belt in crazy, and I know where you live.”

Marjorie M. Liu (1979) American writer

Source: Tiger Eye

“I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane.”

Waylon Jennings (1937–2002) American country music singer, songwriter, and musician

“The desert is a capricious lady, and sometimes she drives men crazy.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Men

“… you look like you fell out of a crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.”

Jim Butcher Proven Guilty

Source: Proven Guilty

Way, Tree

“I'm the crazy girly captain, Remember?”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Arctic Incident

“Life it too short to deal with crazy people.”

Karen E. Quinones Miller (1958) American writer

Life, People

“I'm crazy," said Ender. "But I think I'm OK.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Thinking

“He stepped back and threw his arms out.
"I'm always crazy around you Rose. Here, I'm going to write an impromptu poem for you."
He tipped his head back and shouted to the sky:
"Rose is in red
But never in blue
Sharp as a thorn
Fights like one too.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Fight

“Don’t worry if they say you’re crazy. They said that about me and yet I was saner than all of them. I knew. No matter. You know. Insane or sane, you know. It’s a good thing to know - no matter what they call it.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

“It's like my whole life never happened,
When I see you, it's as if I never had a thought.
I know this dream, it might be crazy,
But it's the only one I've got.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Life, Dreams

“Everything that's innocent to us is crazy to them.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Source: The Garden of Eden

“I can't believe you just did that! Are you crazy?"
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Why do people keep asking me that?"
He turned to stare at me, his eyes worried. "Who else keeps asking you that? Are any of them doctors?”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

People

“But crazy people never think they're crazy. You're sane just by the virtue of the question.”

Jacquelyn Frank (1968) writer

Source: Seduce Me in Dreams

People, Question, Thinking

“I'm a substitute mom."
"You're more like a crazy aunt who only gets called when somebody needs bailing out of jail.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Moms

“Dad? Um, listen. I have kind of a crazy story for you….”

Sarah Mlynowski (1977) Novelist

Source: Ten Things We Did

“One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasn’t as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

World, Science

“Knowing that you're crazy doesn't make the crazy things stop happening.”

Mark Vonnegut (1947) American physician and writer

Source: The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity

“They fight a war and they don't know what for. Isn't that crazy? How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different color uniform and speaks a different language?”

Michael Morpurgo book War Horse

Source: War Horse

War, Color, Fight

“It's just a crazy damned life, that's all…”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

Life

“What we don't let out traps us. We think, "No one else feels this way, I must be crazy." So we don't say anything. And we become enveloped by a deep loneliness, not knowing where our feelings come from or what to do with them. "Why do I feel this way? Last week, I was on top of the world and now my feelings don't make sense." Voicing it, getting it out and letting it other people hear it, helps to dissipate it. The fears and self-criticisms begin to leak. And we begin to heal.”

Sabrina Ward Harrison (1975) Canadian writer

Quoted by Katherine Martin in Women of Courage: Inspiring Stories from the Women Who Lived Them, p. 268 (1999)

People, World, Fear, Way

“Anyone in the United States today who isn't paranoid must be crazy.”

Robert Anton Wilson book The Illuminati Papers

Source: The Illuminati Papers

“Rejection, though--it could make the loss of someone you weren't even that crazy about feel gut wrenching and world ending.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

World, Feeling, Loss

“Yes, it's crazy. Love is either crazy or it's nothing at all.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Source: Life is Elsewhere

Love

“I did learn something about insanity while I was down there. People go crazy, not because they are crazy, but because it's the best available option at the time.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: All These Things I've Done

People, Learning, Time

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

Understanding

“They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

People, World

“You trust me?" Eric sounded surprised.
"Yes."
"That's… crazy, Sookie.”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

“Mama--Mama--I want so many things… I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…”

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Source: A Raisin in the Sun

“You have such interesting thoughts. No wonder witches are ephemeral. You drive yourself crazy. You should simply do what you want without the soul-searching. It will be easier in the long run, Rachel Mariana Morgan.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Soul, Search

“A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

“He was beside me then, his arms wrapped around me, holding me tightly.

"I'm not crazy," I whispered.

"I know."

Believe it or not, that's the most romantic thing Zachary Goode ever told me.

And I kind of loved him for it.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Love

“As long as you're neurotic and crazy, he's great. But once he solves all your problems, he becomes the problem.”

Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City

Source: Sex and the City

Problem

“When you are crazy you learn to keep quiet.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

VALIS

Learning

“If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

Thinking

“That's the crazy thing about lies. You start to fall for them, yourself.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

“I loved the way he kissed me, as if he had to, as if he’d go crazy if he didn’t and had nearly waited too”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Variant: I loved the way he kissed me, as if he had to, as if he'd go crazy if he didn't and had nearly waited too long.
Source: Bared to You

Love, Way, Kiss, Waiting

“When the ship docks, I'm getting off with you.
This is crazy.
I know it doesn't make any sense, that's why I trust it.”

James Cameron (1954) Canadian film director

Source: James Cameron's Titanic

Sense

“Looks like what drives me crazy
Don't have no effect on you--
But I'm gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Source: Selected Poems

“When the whole world is crazy, it doesn't pay to be sane.”

Terry Goodkind book The Pillars of Creation

Source: The Pillars of Creation

World

“I never saw such crazy musicians. Everybody in Frisco blew. It was the end of the continent; they didn't give a damn.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

“Insane people are always sure they're just fine. It's only the sane people who are willing to admit they're crazy.”

Nora Ephron book Heartburn

Nora Ephron, Heartburn (1983), as reported in What a piece of work is man!: Camp's unfamiliar quotations from 2000 B.C. to the present (1989), p. 320.

People

“It's regrets that make painful memories. When I was crazy I did everything just right.”

Mark Vonnegut (1947) American physician and writer

Source: The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity

Pain, Memory

“Look, I'll fight, too. What do you think it is? Bear, coyote…?"
"My brother."
"Your…" Dismay pooled in Mark. She'd just stepped over the line of acceptable craziness. "Oh.”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Source: Daughters of Darkness

Thinking, Fight

“Can you go cazy without knowing you're crazy?”

Laurie Faria Stolarz (1972) American writer

Source: Deadly Little Lies