Quotes about crazy
page 8

“Communism was not the crazy fantasy of a few fanatics, nor the result of human stupidity and baseness; it was a real, very real part of the history of the twentieth century, and we cannot understand this history of ours without understanding communism. We cannot get rid of this specter by saying it was just “human stupidity,” or “human corruptibility.” The specter is stronger than the spells we cast on it. It might come back to life.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Introduction to My Correct Views on Everything

Life, Stupidity, History, Communication

“From what I’ve read,” I said to him, “the world goes crazy every three or four decades. The trick is to survive until it goes sane again.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 19 (p. 229)

World, Reading

“Navigation brought man face to face with the uncertainty of destiny, where each is left to himself and every departure might always be the last. The madman on his crazy boat sets sail for the other world, and it is from the other world that he comes when he disembarks. This enforced navigation is both rigorous division and absolute Passage, serving to underline in real and imaginary terms the liminal situation of the mad in medieval society. It was a highly symbolic role, made clear by the mental geography involved, where the madman was confined at the gates of the cities. His exclusion was his confinement, and if he had no prison other than the threshold itself he was still detained at this place of passage. In a highly symbolic position he is placed on the inside of the outside, or vice versa. A posture that is still his today, if we admit that what was once the visible fortress of social order is now the castle of our own consciousness.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Part One: 1. Stultifera Navis
History of Madness (1961)

World, Departure, Madness

“On her passion for acting, Mumtaz said “I used to feel a sort of emptiness before I started acting but not any longer… If I were not an actress, I’d have gone crazy.”

Mumtaz (actress) (1947) Indian film actress

December 1966 (Filmfare, December 7, 2011)
Quotes from Mumtaz

Feeling, Passion

“Let's be clear: all professions look bad in the movies. And there's a good reason for this. Movies don't portray career paths, they conscript interesting lifestyles to serve a plot. So lawyers are all unscrupulous and doctors are all uncaring. Psychiatrists are all crazy, and politicians are all corrupt. All cops are psychopaths, and all businessmen are crooks. Even moviemakers come off badly: directors are megalomaniacs, actors are spoiled brats. Since all occupations are portrayed negatively, why expect scientists to be treated differently?”

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) American author, screenwriter, film producer

"Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities: Science Views Media" http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote01.html - Speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anaheim, California (25 January 1999)

“If you call it a riot, it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion.”

Maxine Waters (1938) U.S. Representative from California

Remarks (May 1992), quoted in Los Angeles Times (29 April 2007) " Was it a 'riot,' a 'disturbance' or a 'rebellion'? http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-op-wordwatch29apr29,1,3907230.story" by Swati Pandey

People, Understanding

“I’m gonna rock you baby to sleep
I’m gonna make you crazy over me
I’m gonna hold you like you’ve never been held before
And love you till you tell me you can’t love anymore
I’m gonna shake your emotion right down to your soul
And then I’m gonna love you all over in and out of control
If this is how love is supposed to feel
Baby I know I’ve fallen head over heels
I’m gonna rock you baby.”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

Rock You Baby.
Song lyrics, Unleashed (2002)

Love, Feeling, Soul, Sleep

“Bill Gates has 90 billion dollars … If I had 90 billion dollars, I wouldn’t have it for long because I would just dream of all the crazy stuff I could do with it. This guy, 90 billion dollars. He could buy every baseball team and make them all wear dresses and still have 88 billion dollars.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

http://www.hulu.com/watch/233890

Dreams, Guy

“Hey, does anybody notice this crazy thing that we're on the road to socialism? I'm just saying. Wow. We got — we got the SCHIPs thing going for us. That's great. There is the change that we were all hoping for, really, seriously. Hey, I got an idea. If we're going down the road to socialism, I mean, why not really go for it, huh? Comrades, good news from the western front, our glorious revolution is starting to take hold. Oh, the revolution of change. Our fearless leader has just signed in SCHIPs, and earlier today, he spoke out against capitalism. Listen up.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Glenn Beck
Television
Fox News
2009-02-05
Glenn Beck : The Road To Socialism
2009-02-05
MonkeyCrash
http://monkeycrash.com/2009/02/05/glenn-beck-the-road-to-socialism/
on the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill signed by President Obama on 2009-02-04
2000s, 2009

Hope, Idea, Change

“The “bleeding hearts” who want love without anger, relationship without conflict, harmony without contradictions, are forced to create an illusory world of unambivalent love. … It is not accidental that such perfect persons (who never question their own motives, or suspect their hidden ideology or self-interest) make other feel tainted and guilty. Every sentimental sermon is served with a side-dish of guilt. In their presence, honest doubt is named cynicism, anger is called evil, and ambivalence is castigated as craziness.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: The Passionate Life (1983), p. 84

Love, World, Feeling, Motivation

“Which mindset is right? Mine, of course. People who disagree with me are by definition crazy. (Until I change my mind, when they can suddenly become upstanding citizens. I'm flexible, and not black-and-white.)”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

2000s, 2005

People, Change

“I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" – anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least thought about in pretty much any context").”

Linus Torvalds (1969) Finnish-American software engineer and hacker

LKML, September 28, 2006 http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/msg/892dc13a2f4c5483 2000s, 2006

Sense

“I went down to London with the idea that I was going to do vocals over this crazy, crazy trip-hop digital beat. Within two or three months, I heard Hunky Dory by David Bowie and that changed me in one way, and I realized what I actually wanted was to have an E Street Band — individuals, not session musicians.”

KT Tunstall (1975) Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist

Barnes & Noble Interview with David Sprague (February 2006) http://web.archive.org/web/20070506185456/http://music.barnesandnoble.com/features/interview.asp?NID=1011932&z=y.

Way, Idea, Change

“Nice person, bad person -- that's not the level this girl is at. I can see you're crazy about her and probably won't be able to hear this, Ao-chan, but I think you'd be better off staying away from someone like her. I can't read her exactly, but I can tell you she's either a saint or a monster. Maybe both extremes at once, but not somewhere in between.”

Ryū Murakami book Audition

Source: Audition (1997), Chapter Eight, Kai

Girl, Thinking, Reading, Personality

“I distinguish between maniacs and crazy people; a maniac will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo. A crazy person will beat nine people to death with a steel dildo, but he'll be wearing a Bugs Bunny suit at the time.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

"State Prison Farms"
Back in Town (1996)

Death, People, Time, Personality

“Maybe he was crazy, he thought. It would explain everything. Insanity was good that way.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 7 (p. 80)

Way

“Murray held his daughter at arm’s length. “Does God…er, visit you?”
“She doesn’t even whisper to me. I listen, but she doesn’t talk. It’s not fair.”
God didn’t talk. The best news he’d heard since Gabriel Frostig announced his embryo. “Look Julie, it’s good she doesn’t talk. God asks her children to do crazy things. It’s good she doesn’t whisper. Understand?”
“I guess.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. Where’d the crab go? Is he looking for his friends?””

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

A profound weariness pressed upon Murray. “Yes. Right. His friends. It’s good God doesn’t whisper.”
Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 2 (p. 46)

God, Children, Understanding, Daughters

“Trump says a lot of things that are crazy… Trump's a moron.”

Carly Fiorina (1954) American corporate executive and politician

As quoted in "Carly Fiorina Repeats After Girl: 'Donald Trump's a Moron'" http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/carly-fiorina-repeats-girl-donald-trumps-moron/story?id=36327939 (16 January 2016), by Ben Gittleson, ABC News. 2010s, 2016

“Surrender to what is ultimate. Surrender to what you really are! Besides being John, Gary, anything you are named. What are you is what you have to understand. And serve that purpose. Serve that motive. Because what you are is far more greater than what you think you are. And because you think what you are, that… What it is inside of you, what is far more greater than you think you are, supercedes. Because that is what you are always thinking. “Oh I am -- I’m just not good.” And, “I’m just, I’m just a bum,” or, “I’m just crazy,” or, “I’ve just had it.””

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

No. There’s something within inside of you that is really beautiful. And this is what the Knowledge reveals.
Portland, Oregon, 30 January 1977
1970s

Beauty, Motivation, Understanding, Knowledge

“I returned to civilization shortly after that and went to Cornell to teach, and my first impression was a very strange one. I can't understand it any more, but I felt very strongly then. I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth… How far from here was 34th street?… All those buildings, all smashed — and so on. And I would go along and I would see people building a bridge, or they'd be making a new road, and I thought, they're crazy, they just don't understand, they don't understand. Why are they making new things? It's so useless. But, fortunately, it's been useless for almost forty years now, hasn't it? So I've been wrong about it being useless making bridges and I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

On his emotional reaction after the first uses of the atomic bomb.
Part 3: "Feynman, The Bomb, and the Military", "Los Alamos from Below", p. 136
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

People, Understanding, Thinking, Sense

“I never know what to make of Bode Miller because he is crazy. I'm serious. He is so hard to understand. But I know this: When he is on, he is the perfect skier.”

Bode Miller (1977) American alpine ski racer

Austrian skier Benjamin Raich at 2010 Olympics http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/sports/olympics/22skiing.html?hp About

Understanding, Perfection

“Damn, what a sorry-looking outfit. You boys don't look so crazy to me.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 1

Boy

“To change the subject, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“What about?”
“Free will.”
“Free will?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying not to fidget, a weird feeling in his head. “I reckon free will is bullshit.”
“You need to get some sleep, Spider.”
“No, no, I feel okay, more or less.”
“Free will,” she said, shaking her head.
“It’s an illusion. That’s all it is. Everything is already sorted out, every decision, every possibility, it’s all determined, scripted, whatever.”
Iris was looking at him as if she was worried. “Where’d all this come from?”
“I’ve been to the End of bloody Time, Iris. From that perspective, everything is done and settled. Basically, everything that could happen has happened. It’s all mapped out, documented, diagrammed, written up in great big books, and ignored.”
“You’re a crazy bastard, you know that, Spider?”
“Maybe not crazy enough,” he said.
Iris was still struggling for traction on the conversation. “You think everything is predetermined? Is that it? But what about—”
“No. You just think you have free will.”
“So, according to you,” Iris said, looking bewildered, “a guy who kills his wife was always going to kill her. She was always going to die.”
“From his point of view, he doesn’t know that, and neither does she, but yeah. She was always a goner, so to speak.”
“There is no way I can accept this,” she said. “It’s intolerable. It robs individual people of moral agency. According to you nobody chooses to do anything; they’re just following a script. That means nobody’s responsible for anything.”
“I said free will is an illusion. We think we’ve got moral agency, we think we make choices. It’s a perfect illusion. It just depends on your point of view.”
“It’s a bloody pathway to madness, I reckon,” Iris said.
“I dunno,” he said. “Right now, sitting here, thinking about everything, I think it makes a lot of sense. Kinda, anyway.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

“Think you’ll find that’s just an illusion,” she said, and flashed a tiny smile.
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 22 (pp. 271-272)

People, Books, Smile, Way

“Oh yes, friend! I'm crazy- that's just the way I am.”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

Lunatic. 1
पागल (The Lunatic)

Way

“The device [electronic I Ching calculator] also functioned as an ordinary calculator, but only to a limited degree. It could handle any calculation which returned an answer of anything up to 4. …anything above 4 it represented merely as "A Suffusion of Yellow." Dirk was not certain if this was a programming error or an insight beyond his ability to fathom, but he was crazy about it anyway, enough to hand over twenty pounds of ready cash for the thing.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 10

Error

“Everybody must seem crazy if you see deep enough into their minds.”

William March book The Looking-Glass

The Looking-Glass (1943)

“I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 10

Love, Stupidity, Girl, Hell

“There was this one crime I read about that was so heinous, I didn't have any words for it. This guy had killed a girl, her mother, and her grandmother. I mean, I am so pissed off reading this, steam's coming out of my ears. This guy was put on trial and was found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers. Then, about a week before the execution, a group of people stood up on his behalf, ON HIS BEHALF, to say, "We can't kill him. He's too crazy to know we're killing him!"…So what are we arguing about? If he doesn't know the difference and it makes me sleep better at night…”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

They Call Me Tater Salad

Death, People, Guy, Girl

“Many years later I was told that the great specialist had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading The Yellow Wallpaper.
It was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.”

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) American feminist, writer, commercial artist, lecturer and social reformer

"Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper" in The Forerunner (October 1913).

People, Reading

“So I started to paint like crazy, from figurative to abstract. Then after a year, I put it all on a bonfire in the courtyard of the academy. I suppose there was some ritual involved, but I didn't tell anyone before I did it, so it wasn't public, and I felt the work had to be burned because people were already taking things and paintings were starting to circulate. I had to prevent that because I realized it was time to start from scratch. Photographs were the way forward. I'm shocked now that the story seems clear, because it didn't seem clear at the time.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

after 2000, Gerhard Richter: An Artist Beyond Isms' (2002)

People, Way, Time, Painting

“I describe it as anti-profiling. It's not that I want certain people profiled – I just want us to admit that certain people require less scrutiny, and Jerry Seinfeld is one. When you see a famous celebrity go through security, treated as though he may just have become a jihadist when no one was watching… It's crazy. It is security theatre.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Sam Harris on the Rubin Report, "Sam Harris: For Racial Profiling of Muslims?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsVtM0RFQJI. 2010s

People

“Roger: Hmm.. I don't know. I like playing at home because sleeping at home after the show is a bonus. That's really nice. I'd have to say I really like playing Japan. There's just a different level of respect or something that goes on with the fans. They're just completely animalistic and going crazy during the show and then in between songs like as soon as a song stops, it's silent 'cause they want to hear what you have to say so they can try and understand what you're saying. It's really awesome - it's great. Even in the UK and London - places like that, fans are just rabid and go completely crazy and it's always fun. I'd have to say Tokyo and London are pretty awesome”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Home, Understanding, Sleep

“Some days I have to give right in to the blues
Despite how I try to keep fightin'.
It's a sure shot I'm going to lose.
And I'll tell you why.
You think I'm crazy.
It's such a sad composition.
But can you blame me
For what's been causing my bad disposition?
Ain't nothing new with my blue situation
And nothing's fine it's just a minor variation.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

A Minor Variation.
Song lyrics, River of Dreams (1993)

Sadness, Thinking

“In a society where there is no freedom of the press, it is difficult for victims to be noticed. Just take the example from yesterday: I had given a telephone interview to CNN. Then, suddenly, CNN was shut down for a couple of minutes. It was the first time I experienced that my television went totally dead. I realized: Oh my God, it’s because of me. This is crazy! Which nation would do that? Maybe Cuba, North Korea, China. But what do they want, what are they so afraid of?”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei Does Not Feel Powerful, 2011

God, Freedom, Time, Dead

“Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad serves up a triple scoop of crazy, sprinkled with crazy, and topped off with warm crazy sauce.”

Rachel Marsden (1974) journalist

cited in Fox's Ann Coulter 2.0 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/03/29/marsden/index.html. Salon.com.

“It’s one thing to have guts; it’s another to be crazy.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 15 “Gaia-S” section 2, p. 302

“The country does want rest, we all want rest. Our very civilization wants it — and we mean that it shall have it. It shall have rest — repose — refreshment of soul and re-invigoration of faculty. And that rest shall be of life and not of death. It shall not be a poison that pacifies restlessness in death, nor shall it be any kind of anodyne or patting or propping or bolstering — as if a man with a cancer in his breast would be well if he only said he was so and wore a clean shirt and kept his shoes tied. We want the rest of a real Union, not of a name, not of a great transparent sham, which good old gentlemen must coddle and pat and dandle, and declare wheedlingly is the dearest Union that ever was, SO it is; and naughty, ugly old fanatics shan't frighten the pretty precious — no, they sha'n't. Are we babies or men? This is not the Union our fathers framed — and when slavery says that it will tolerate a Union on condition that freedom holds its tongue and consents that the Constitution means first slavery at all costs and then liberty, if you can get it, it speaks plainly and manfully, and says what it means. There are not wanting men enough to fall on their knees and cry: 'Certainly, certainly, stay on those terms. Don't go out of the Union — please don't go out; we'll promise to take great care in future that you have everything you want. Hold our tongues? Certainly. These people who talk about liberty are only a few fanatics — they are tolerably educated, but most of 'em are crazy; we don't speak to them in the street; we don't ask them to dinner; really, they are of no account, and if you'll really consent to stay in the Union, we'll see if we can't turn Plymouth Rock into a lump of dough'. I don't believe the Southern gentlemen want to be fed on dough. I believe they see quite as clearly as we do that this is not the sentiment of the North, because they can read the election returns as well as we. The thoughtful men among them see and feel that there is a hearty abhorrence of slavery among us, and a hearty desire to prevent its increase and expansion, and a constantly deepening conviction that the two systems of society are incompatible. When they want to know the sentiment of the North, they do not open their ears to speeches, they open their eyes, and go and look in the ballot-box, and they see there a constantly growing resolution that the Union of the United States shall no longer be a pretty name for the extension of slavery and the subversion of the Constitution. Both parties stand front to front. Each claims that the other is aggressive, that its rights have been outraged, and that the Constitution is on its side. Who shall decide? Shall it be the Supreme Court? But that is only a co-ordinate branch of the government. Its right to decide is not mutually acknowledged. There is no universally recognized official expounder of the meaning of the Constitution. Such an instrument, written or unwritten, always means in a crisis what the people choose. The people of the United States will always interpret the Constitution for themselves, because that is the nature of popular governments, and because they have learned that judges are sometimes appointed to do partisan service.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Life, Death, Men, People

“We leaders should leave the tradition that we have become crazy for God.”

Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) Korean religious leader

The Way of God's Will Chapter 1-3. Leaders http://www.unification.org/ucbooks/WofGW/wogw1-03.htm Translated 1980.

God

“Cary [Grant] would arrive on the set and everybody's morale immediately lifted. The crew were crazy about him and so was I. But, curiously, I never felt the male-female chemistry that you sometimes experience on a set. I could have been talking to my best girl-friend.”

Laraine Day (1920–2007) American actress

The Independent, Obituaries, Laraine Day, November 13, 2007.

Girl

“When I was very young I was Judy. On good days I was Dorothy, on bad days I was the Wicked Witch. The interesting thing about it, too, is that I’ve always related to it mainly because I don’t relate much to Frank Sinatra. I appreciate Frank, but there are so many Frank Sinatra imitators, whether it’s Harry Connick Jr. or Michael Bublé—the kind of guys who [Snaps his fingers in quick succession] basically want to get laid. And there’s nobody being the flip side of that, which is the hungry, lonely, desperate, crazy-person singer [Laughs]. So I wanted to pick up that mantle and try to be a little less cool.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

About Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall concert, Time Out New York Issue 551, April 20–26, 2006

Guy, Success, Personality

“This time of year, the whole crazy city could go in one big fire storm. There were times that he almost wished that it would. He hated this smoggy, tawdry Babylon of a city, its endless tangle of freeways, the strange-looking houses, the filthy air, the thick, choking, glossy foliage everywhere, the drugs, the booze, the divorces, the laziness, the sleaziness, the porno shops and the naked encounter parlors and the massage joints, the weird people wearing their weird clothes and driving their weird cars and cutting their hair in weird ways. There was a cheapness, a trashiness, about everything here, he thought. Even the mansions and the fancy restaurants were that way: hollow, like slick movie sets. He sometimes felt that the trashiness bothered him more than the out-and-out evil. If you kept sight of your own values you could do battle with evil, but trashiness slipped up around you and infiltrated your soul without your even knowing it. He hoped that his sojourn in Los Angeles was not doing that to him.”

Robert Silverberg (1935) American speculative fiction writer and editor

Source: Short fiction, Against Babylon (1986), p. 264

Hate, People, Hope, Angels

“I used old comic clothes stuff in the early days. I had the big shoes, I had the tight clothes, in fact I played several different characters. I played one called Willie Work; he used to have wide shoulders, a little cat mustache, a high hat. Another one was called Lonesome Luke, and his clothes were tight with a little funny hat; he had a funny little mustache. But when I adopted the glasses, it more or less put me in a different category because I became a human being. He was a kid that you would meet next door, across the street, but at the same time I could still do all the crazy things that we did before, but you believed them. They were natural and the romance could be believable.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

1962 TV interview with Harry Reasoner.

Shoe, Cats, Nature, Time

“I decided then and there that the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms were the only music for me, not the music of this crazy Russian. … My one desire was to flee that room and find a quiet corner in which to rest my aching head. Then Diaghilev turned to me and with a smile said, "This is a masterpiece, Monteux, which will completely revolutionize music and make you famous, because you are going to conduct it."”

Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) French conductor

And, of course, I did.
Quoted in Monteux, Doris G (1965). It's All in the Music: The Life and Work of Pierre Monteux. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. OCLC 604146, p. 91
On first hearing The Rite of Spring

Smile, Music

“Today the world has gone sex crazy. Illicit sex has become the downfall of many in the Bible. Movie stars not married to each other, having babies and making headlines all over the world as though they were doing some great thing. Big deal! Just another moral pervert. And for them to become heroes for our kids. My wife and I will be married 49 years the next anniversary.”

Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) American evangelical pastor, televangelist, and conservative political commentator

Televised sermon at the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia (25 June 2006), as quoted in "Falwell on the "moral pervert[s http://mediamatters.org/items/200606270003" in Hollywood: "[Y]ou almost got to be a homosexual to be recognized in the entertainment industry anymore" at Media Matters for America (27 June 2006)]

World, Sex, Star, Baby

“In tranquility one recollects them with affection, their instinct is good, crazy family good.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Family

“The wisest among us is very lucky never to have met the woman, be she beautiful or ugly, intelligent or stupid, who could drive him crazy enough to be fit to be put into an asylum.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

Ceci n’est pas un conte [This Is No Tale] (1796),

Stupidity, Beauty, Intelligence

“Arrival at break of dawn. Veiled giants stood sleepily in wet mist on Manhattan... Yes, New York is really grandiose. But it stinks of burned fat, just like the sacrificial meal of the slain enemies among the savages. But nevertheless – crazy, crazy, crazy! Babylon is a kindergarten compared with this, and the tower of Babel here becomes the mass erection of a monstrous and senseless will. I am sympathetic.”

Max Beckmann (1884–1950) German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor and writer

Beckmann's diary-notes, New York, 8 and 9 September 1947; as quoted in Max Beckmann, Stephan Lackner, Bonfini Press Corporation, Naefels, Switzerland, 1983, p. 89
1940s

“I am not a fan of John McCain because he has done so little for our Veterans and he should know better than anybody what the Veterans need, especially in regards to the VA. He is yet another all talk, no action politician who spends too much time on television and not enough time doing his job and helping the Vets. He is also allowing our military to decrease substantially in size and strength, something which should never be allowed to happen. Furthermore, he was extremely disrespectful to the thousands upon thousands of people, many of whom happen to be his constituents, that came to listen to me speak about illegal immigration in Phoenix last week by calling them "crazies". These were not "crazies"—these were great American citizens. I have great respect for all those who serve in our military including those that weren't captured and are also heroes. I want to strengthen our military and take care of our Veterans. I want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN especially for those that serve to protect our freedom. I am fighting for our Veterans!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015

People, Freedom, Time, Help

“God intended for us to get accustomed to sex long before there was any procreation or any sex or intercourse. And therefore you wouldn't be so preoccupied with it when you finally hit puberty or somewhere near there, and you wouldn't just go crazy about it. If you were already accustomed to it, there wouldn't be any big deal about it, nothing new!-- It's only natural!”

David Berg (1919–1994) Children of God founder

My Childhood Sex!—Doin' What Comes Naturally

God, Sex, Nature

“I do not think this is a permanent condition. The craziness comes more from cultural ethnic issues than anything else, because you have a… A lot of the real craziness come from, if you like, from rural White Americans who feel that they’re losing their country, they’re losing ownership of the country. And they are right — we are becoming more diverse, more multicultural. And in the end, they are they…they…they are not the future. In the end, the power they still have will go away. But it’s a very difficult time until then. So the future is Mayor Deblasio of New York, but Ted Cruz is still out there with the ability to do a lot of damage.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

in Paul Krugman Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-8yFPTwhKs&feature=youtu.be&t=363 by Norwegian TV channel NRK (January 8, 2014)

Feeling, Thinking, Time, Future

“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I. Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump Mocks Mika Brzezinski https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/business/media/trump-mika-brzezinski-facelift.html (29 June 2017) 2010s, 2017, June

Night

“The hardest thing about being famous is that people are always nice to you. You're in a conversation and everybody's agreeing with what you're saying—even if you say something totally crazy. You need people who can tell you what you don't want to hear.”

Robert De Niro (1943) American actor, director and producer

What I've Learned

People

“Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Tweet published by @realdonaldtrump https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/881140479454310401 (1 July 2017) 2010s, 2017, July

People

“I respect Kirkpatrick both for his sponges and for his numinous nummulosphere. It is easy to dismiss a crazy theory with laughter that debars any attempt to understand a man's motivation—and the nummulosphere is a crazy theory. I find that few men of imagination are not worth my attention. Their ideas may be wrong, even foolish, but their methods often repay a close study. […] The different drummer often beats a fruitful tempo.”

Stephen Jay Gould book The Panda's Thumb

"Crazy Old Randolph Kirkpatrick", p. 235
The Panda's Thumb (1980)

Men, Imagination, Motivation, Idea

“The pictures [De Kooning had] done since the 'Women', they're emotions, most of them. Most of them are landscapes and highways and sensations of that, outside the city – with the feeling of going to the city or coming from it. I am not a pastoral character. I'm not a – how do you say that? – 'country dumpling'. I am here and I like New York City. But I love to go out in a car… I'm just crazy about going over the roads and highways.”

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) Dutch painter

Interview conducted by David Sylvester for the BBC, 1962; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism: Creators and Critics, edited by Clifford Ross, Abrahams Publishers, New York 1990, p. 48.
1960's

Love, Women, Cars, Feeling

“People are always criticizing Twitter. "Twitter is crazy!" they say. I think that's misguided. Twitter is simply an avenue -- there are many -- by which people reveal who they are.”

Jay Nordlinger (1963) American journalist

Twitter post https://twitter.com/jaynordlinger/status/1037393063616937984 (5 September 2018) 2010s

People, Thinking

“To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.”

Dejan Stojanovic (1959) poet, writer, and businessman

Task of a Poet http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/21367/Task_of_a_Poet From the poems written in English

World, Smile, Color, Feeling

“Very bad thing, killing little boy. But maybe Red man knows about whisky-Red, very thirsty, making crazy. Not like killing man to take his house or his woman or his land, like White man all the time.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Red Prophet (1988), Chapter 4.

Boy, Time, Housing

“I am not trying to sell the idea that myself, as a 22-year-old, needs to be married right now for the sake of traditionalism and not being a degenerate. … What is also just completely shocking to me is the utter lack of understanding of nuance and exceptions. People who ignore that there are exceptions to the rule are just as crazy as people who ignore that there’s a rule in the first place.”

Lauren Southern (1995) Canadian libertarian commentator

“Alt-right” women are upset that “alt-right” men are treating them terribly https://www.salon.com/2017/12/04/alt-right-women-are-upset-that-alt-right-men-are-treating-them-terribly/?page=2 (12 April 2017)

People, Idea, Understanding

“I was writing for businesses. I think my mother was a little skeptical in the beginning, but fortunately, as a free-lance writer I was successful almost immediately. And so she was very proud, because she measured success in terms of money, which is what I started to do as well. My goal then, became to increase the amount of money that I made each month. Not simply each year, but each month — I mean, talk about pressure — to have more billable hours each month. So that by the end of my third year of being a free-lance writer, I was billing 90 hours a week. I had no time to sleep. I had no life. People said I was crazy, that I was a workaholic. And I couldn't understand how it was that I had these wonderful clients, and I was making all this money, and I wasn't happy and I didn't feel successful. That's when I started to write fiction.”

Amy Tan (1952) American novelist

American Acheivement interview (1996)

Life, Money, Happiness, People

“In the city of Denver, while I was vice-president, a big husky policeman kept following me around until I asked him what he was doing. He said he was guarding my person. I said: "Your labor is in vain. Nobody was ever crazy enough to shoot at a vice-president. If you will go away and find somebody to shoot at me, I'll go down in history as the first vice-president who ever attracted enough attention even to have a crank shoot at him."”

Thomas R. Marshall (1854–1925) American politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States

Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall: A Hoosier Salad (1925), Chapter XIV

History, Personality

“Most of the time you're playing the crazy girl or the stripper - always the stripper! I mean, how many strippers can I play. I can do a lap dance phenomenally, and that's not a good sign, because I'm not a stripper.”

Diora Baird (1983) American actress and model

About her roles; in Stuff magazine, reprinted in October 23, 2006 New York Post, p. 6.

Girl, Time, Dance

“How do you like me now?
How do you like me now,
Now that I'm on my way?
Do you still think I'm crazy,
Standin here today?
I couldn't make you love me.
But I always dreamed about living in your radio.
How do you like me now?”

Toby Keith (1961) American country music singer and actor

How Do You Like Me Now?!, written with Chuck Cannon
Song lyrics, How Do You Like Me Now?! (1999)

Love, Dreams, Way, Thinking

“Don't look at me weird. I'm sandwich crazy.”

Bill Allred

Radio From Hell (July 18, 2006)

“I think drugs are like strawberries. That was something I was very much a part of, but at the same time there's that incredible nightmare paranoia... it drives human beings crazy. It frightened me to see it around me... I had everything that could be moves stolen by speed freaks. Things began to disappear. The Queen Bee Speedfreaks and Amphetamine Annie had found out where my apartment was. All my jewelry was stolen and all my expensive clothes. Dior, Balenciaga... just tons of originals. By the way, have you heard anything about my furs? Everybody's wearing them.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Tapes for the movie Ciao! Manhattan
Edie : American Girl (1982)

Way, Thinking, Bee, Time

“Body dysmorphia has got to go. Its similar to a disease called "crazy eyes" not the way others look at you, but the way you see yourself. The insanity which we use as our vision….”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, HATING ONESELF

Disease, Way

“I believe that the crazy combative patriotism that plainly threatens to destroy civilisation to-day is very largely begotten by the schoolmaster and the schoolmistress in their history lessons. They take the growing mind at a naturally barbaric phase and they inflame and fix its barbarism.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

The Informative Content of Education http://books.google.com/books?&id=vLs4AAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+believe+that+the+crazy+combative+patriotism+that+plainly+threatens+to+destroy+civilisation+to-day+is+very+largely+begotten+by+the+schoolmaster+and+the+schoolmistress+in+their+history+lessons+They+take+the+growing+mind+at+a+naturally+barbaric+phase+and+they+inflame+and+fix+its+barbarism%22&pg=PA242#v=onepage Speech http://archive.org/stream/reportofbritisha37adva#page/242/mode/2up given at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Nottingham, England on 2 September 1937

History, Nature

“The vice-president and the president of the Confederate States of America grounded their justification of American slavery on the grounds of a fraudulent science and a crazy fundamentalism. No sane person today can regard them as other than pathetic reminders of a society, like Nazi Germany, mentally unbalanced by its commitment to human inequality.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, Defending the Cause of Human Freedom (1994)

Science, Personality

“No one wants my painting because it is different from other people's — peculiar, crazy public that demands the greatest possible degree of originality on the painter's part and yet won't accept him unless his work resembles that of the others!”

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist

Source: 1890s - 1910s, The Writings of a Savage (1996), p. 205: in a letter to Ambroise Vollard, January 1900

People, Parting, Painting

“The world of knowledge takes a crazy turn
When teachers themselves are taught to learn.”

Bertolt Brecht book Life of Galileo

Scene 6
Life of Galileo (1939)

World, Knowledge, Learning, Teachers

“I love competition.
I'd rather have to fight and worry than be peaceful and secure, any day.
I've found that I'm a peaceful, easy-going sort of a fellow about all the small things in life. But when a big issue comes along and when I feel I'm right about it—well, I guess I'm pretty stubborn. Even nasty.
I've taken up golf. I'm crazy about it. Doug Fairbanks and I play every day that we can get away from work. I not only like the game a lot, but I want to master it. I'm not satisfied just to play golf. I want to be good at it. That's the way I've come to feel about everything.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"Discoveries About Myself". Motion Picture, October 1930, pg. 90. (Brewster Publications). https://archive.org/stream/motionpicture1923040chic#page/n595/mode/2up

Love, Life, Peace, Way

“1 out of 4 Americans believes Jesus will return in their lifetime. See, that's religion: ego masquerading as humility. "Jesus is coming back! Of course he's gonna wanna meet me!… Hi, Jesus, Bob Flemstein, big fan! I know you're crazy busy with the rapture and everything, but… could you sign? I don't wanna be that guy, but…"”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

But I'm Not Wrong (2010)

Religion, Guy, Business

“The last thing I watched on telly with my mother, she died in very late 2008 in the middle of the financial crash, was Gordon Brown saying that it was the destiny of the Labour movement to save the global banking system. And that statement –‘the destiny of the Labour movement to save the global banking system’… I looked to my mum and the last movement she made, really, was to shake her head. You know, it may be the fate of the Labour movement but it can’t be its destiny, that’s just crazy. She just looked bewildered by that.”

Maurice Glasman, Baron Glasman (1961) British philosopher

Interview with Inside Politics, 4 February 2015 https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/architect-blue-labour-interview-lord-glasman

Fate

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
Someone sober will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Source: Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995), Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 46

Lovers

“I have made a great study of the spine ever since I had my spine trouble, and now I know what to do and it doesn’t involve doctors, operations or anything like that. Why, in Puerto Rico last winter I helped 29 people who had back trouble and one of them was a doctor who couldn’t get medical relief. Ask Willie (Stargell), ask Danny Murtaugh what I did for them. They had back trouble and I fixed them, not by any tricks or anything, but because I know how to manipulate and bring relief. A lot of people think if you have a pain or tightness here, it can be worked out by rubbing that area. It can’t. The way to do it is to know the trigger points. Sometimes you have to manipulate a few inches from the spot that’s hurting because that's maybe where the muscle that controls the soreness is. It’s all very complicated, but believe me, it works.

I was suffering so bad I could hardly walk [in 1957]. All the x-rays and medical doctors couldn’t find out what was wrong. Then a man in St. Louis, a chiropractor, called me and offered to help. The ballclub was against it and said they wouldn’t be responsible, but I was desperate and the pain was driving me crazy. But the man, who told me I had a curvature of the spine, was able to fix me up. It was after that I became interested in studying the human back and ever since I’ve never had trouble I couldn't take care of. Back trouble is a painful thing and people who don’t have the problem don’t know how lucky they are.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente a Doc" by Red Foley, in The New York Daily News (October 10, 1971), pp. 69, 75
Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>

Pain, People, Way, Problem

“I get upset 'cause I just want to be treated the way you are
Like a star not a worry in this world thus far
But wait a minute we both need ya mother's attention
I must be crazy jealous of my own baby infant”

Nas (1973) American rapper, record producer and entrepreneur

Book of Rhymes
On Albums, God's Son (2002)

World, Way, Star, Waiting

“Smith corks one into right, down the line! It may go!! … Go crazy, folks! Go crazy! It's a home run, and the Cardinals have won the game, by the score of 3 to 2, on a home run by the Wizard! Go crazy!”

Jack Buck (1924–2002) American sportscaster

Calling Ozzie Smith's 9th inning home run off Niedenfuer in Game 5 of the 1985 National League Championship Series.
1980s

Home, Game

“If he is this good at acting crazy, it's because he is." Nor is military psychology mistaken in this regard: in this sense, all crazy people simulate, and this lack of distinction is the worst kind of subversion. It is against this lack of distinction that classical reason armed itself in all its categories. But it is what today again outflanks them, submerging the principle of truth.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

The Precession of Simulcra
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

People, Truth, Sense

“If we can be one of the companies that makes it possible for humans to become a multi-planetary species, that would be the Holy Grail. It sounds a bit crazy but it's going to happen, and only if people build the means to do so. We're making progress toward a greater philosophical goal while building a sound business.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

People, Business

“I have composed here so many prints from the immediate surroundings around me - starting with the chimneys and the pigeons and the passing ships, the staircase, the labyrinth of corridors and doors, the crazy combinations of beams and wooden walls..”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands): Ik heb hier zoveel drukken gecomponeerd uit de onmiddellijke omgeving om mij heen, beginnende met de schoorstenen en de duiven en de voorbijvarende schepen, het trappenhuis, het doolhof van gangen en deuren, de gekke combinaties van balken en beschotten..
In a letter to August Henkels, 29 April 1941; as cited in H. N. Werkman - Leven & Werk - 1882-1945, ed. A. de Vries, J. van der Spek, D. Sijens, M. Jansen; WBooks, Groninger Museum / Stichting Werkman, 2015 (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek), p. 105
1940's

“You messed up with me, birdie. No? You don't know much about history. You don't know much about anything, you know? A great ignorance is what you've got. You are ignorant, Mr. Danger. You are an ignorant. You are a donkey, Mr. Danger … By that I mean, you know, to say it with all its letters, to Mr. George W. Bush. You are a donkey, Mr. Bush. I'm going to tell you something, Mr. Danger. You are a coward, you know? You are a coward. Why don't you go to Iraq and command your army? It's so easy to command an army from afar. If you ever come up with the crazy idea of invading Venezuela, I'll be waiting for you in this savanna, Mr. Danger. Come on here, Mr. Danger. Come on here. Come on here, Mr. Danger. Coward, assassin, genocidal… Genocidal, you are a genocidal. You are an alcoholic, a drunk.. A drunk, Mr. Danger. You are immoral, Mr. Danger… You are the worst ever, Mr. Danger … The worst of this planet, the very worst is called George W. Bush. God save the world from this menace. Because he is an assassin. A sick man, a psychologically ill man, I know it. Personally, he is a coward. But he has a lot of power. He has a lot of power. And look at what's happening in Iraq. Yesterday the world marched against the war… 70%, according to the surveys I've seen, of your own people, Mr. Danger, are against you, against the war. You are a liar, Mr. Danger. You are killing children, Mr. Danger, who aren't responsible for your illnesses, of your complexes. Your soldiers in Iraq are bombing cities. Just yesterday we were watching images of five children who were murdered by you soldiers. They're not the murderers. You are the murderer, coward!”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Message to George W. Bush, in a nationally televised speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2_lJbIyzT64 in March 2006. 2006

God, War, Children, People

“The pure products of America
go crazy”

William Carlos Williams book Spring and All

"To Elsie"
Spring and All (1923)

“It’s been a crazy year, as always — the story of my life — but it’s been a great year. Right now, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my personal life. I’m happily married. Yeah, there’s lots of ups and downs, but that’s what makes us strong is getting through them all.”

Hope Solo (1981) American association football player

As quoted in "Hope Solo: 'I'm the happiest I’ve ever been in my personal life. I'm happily married'" http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/hope-solo-im-the-happiest-ive-ever-been-in-my-personal-life-im-happily-married/, Seattle Times (January 24, 2013) 2010s

Life, Strong, Personality

“Balzac has often provided us with the tragic spectacle of an old man in love. Obliged now to obtain with gifts and favors what his personal charm won for him in his earlier days, the aged lover will ruin himself for every young woman clever enough to waken a crazy hope in his breast. Chateaubriand, who knew only too well what such suffering was like, left a terrible manuscript entitle Amour et Vieillesse; it is the long and grievous lament of a lover who does not know hot to grow old. "Those who have loved women a great deal will always love them; that is their punishment." And women who have loved many men are punished by hearing the younger among them say with genuine surprise: "I'm told she was once very beautiful."”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Love, Women, Men, Age

“The public takes care of their fear by thinking only crazies and stupid people wind up in cults. I've interviewed over 4000 ex-cult members. There's no one type of person who is vulnerable.”

Margaret Singer (1921–2003) clinical psychology

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1997, as cited in Margaret Thaler Singer http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-4232879_ITM, The Lancet, January 31, 2004 2004

People, Stupidity, Fear, Thinking

“The ultimate meaning of the angry young man is not known. What is known is the shape of his greatest fear—that all of his efforts, from learning to speak to learning to write, to write well, to write badly, to write angrily, from learning to despise to learning to abominate, to abominate well, to abominate badly, to abominate abominably, to rant, to fulminate, to shout down the sea, to age, to age graefully, to age awkwardly, to age at all, to think, to regret, to list himself in the newspapers under “Lost and Found”, might culminate precisely in this: a roaring, raging, crazy mad passionate bibliography.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Angry Young Man”, p. 111.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

Age, Fear, Thinking, Effort

“I want my street to be crazy, I want my avenues, shops and buildings, to enter into a crazy dance, and this is why I deform and distort their outlines and colours. However I always come up against the same difficulty, that if all the elements were one by one deformed and distorted excessively, if in the end nothing remained of their real outlines, I would have totally effaced the location that I intended to suggest, that I wished to transform.”

Jean Dubuffet book Prospectus et tous écrits suivants

Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 483

Dance

“Alfie was an organizer. He would telephone the other kids a week before that first practice session (which he euphemistically called spring training), and he would knock on their doors the morning of, and they would look out the windows and say, "Hey, it's snowing," and he would say, "It's not snowing all that hard. See you in a half-hour." So we would gather our tired, cold bodies together, throw on our baseball clothes—old shirts, old pants, sneakers, old baseball gloves—and grab a couple of bats and scuffed-up balls, and we would pile onto the subway and ride to Van Cortland Park. We would run to make sure we'd be first to claim a ball field. Of course we were first. Nobody else was that crazy. My brother would direct practice for a couple of hours, batting practice, catching fungoes, fielding, practicing our curves and drops on the sidelines, fingers aching from contact with batted or thrown baseballs. We threw ourselves across that hard bone of a field so we would be ready when the spring suns finally thawed the ground at our feet. If the still-awake dreams of hunting lions in Africa were the peak moments of my night life, those frozen ball fields of February were the highlights of my days.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

Recalling his late brother, from "Life with Alfie," https://books.google.com/books?id=PWEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA233&dq=%22Alfie+was+an+organizer%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAGoVChMIiqWJ2oHaxwIVipANCh2Utw2g#v=onepage&q=%22Alfie%20was%20an%20organizer%22&f=false in Orange Coast Magazine (November 1990), pp. 233–234 Other Topics

Life, Dreams, Spring, Sun

“The ideologies of the super-tribes exercised absolute power over all individual minds under their sway.
In civilized regions the super-tribes and the overgrown natural tribes created an astounding mental tyranny. In relation to his natural tribe, at least if it was small and genuinely civilized, the individual might still behave with intelligence and imagination. Along with his actual tribal kinsmen he might support a degree of true community unknown on Earth. He might in fact be a critical, self-respecting and other-respecting person. But in all matters connected with the super-tribes, whether national or economic, he behaved in a very different manner. All ideas coming to him with the sanction of nation or class would be accepted uncritically and with fervor by himself and all his fellows. As soon as he encountered one of the symbols or slogans of his super-tribe he ceased to be a human personality and became a sort of de-cerebrate animal, capable only of stereotyped reactions. In extreme cases his mind was absolutely closed to influences opposed to the suggestion of the super-tribe. Criticism was either met with blind rage or actually not heard at all. Persons who in the intimate community of their small native tribe were capable of great mutual insight and sympathy might suddenly, in response to tribal symbols, be transformed into vessels of crazy intolerance and hate directed against national or class enemies. In this mood they would go to any extreme of self-sacrifice for the supposed glory of the super-tribe. Also they would show great ingenuity in contriving means to exercise their lustful vindictiveness upon enemies who in favorable circumstances could be quite as kindly and intelligent as themselves.”

Olaf Stapledon book Star Maker

Source: Star Maker (1937), Chapter V: Worlds Innumerable; 2. Strange Mankinds (p. 62)

Hate, Exercises, Imagination, Intelligence

“Everyone's a little crazy when you get inside their head… it's only a matter of degree.”

Erica Jong book Fear of Flying

Fear of Flying (1973)

“It is not crazy to think that powerful people do some pretty horrible things. And maybe they get out of hand. Maybe it just gets away from them. It snowballs.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

Majority Report, November 10, 2004 broadcast
Majority Report

People, Thinking

“The real crazies who are looking for a messiah… after an hour or so they realise I'm not it and go off and look somewhere else.”

Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist

Trip of a Lifetime (1999)

“I've always been crazy and the trouble that it's put me through;
I've been busted for things that I did, and I didn't do.
I can't say I’m proud of all of the things that I’ve done,
But I can say I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone.”

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

I've Always Been Crazy, title track from I've Always Been Crazy (1978).
Song lyrics

Hurt

“Take most people, they're crazy about cars. They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer. I don't even like old cars. I mean they don't even interest me. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.”

Jerome David Salinger book The Catcher in the Rye

Source: The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Chapter 17

God, People, Cars, Thinking

“There is no rose without a thorn
No rain without the storm
There is no laughter without tears
No wisdom without years
In a world gone crazy
Torn between the roads that we must choose
Win or lose.”

Anastacia (1968) American singer-songwriter

Who's Gonna Stop the Rain
Not That Kind (2000)

Wisdom, World, Tear, Laughter

“Really, why am I doing this anymore? It makes me crazy. I hate getting up early in the morning, and I don't particularly like doing the show.”

Howard Stern (1954) American radio personality

Howard Stern on Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN (January 18, 2011)

Hate

“There are many predicaments in life that one must be a bit crazy to escape from.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Il arrive quelquefois des accidents dans la vie d'où il faut être un peu fou pour se bien tirer.
Maxim 310.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Life