“Faced with growing dissent, he turned the boat around, heading back the way they had come. One marine began to go mad, laughing hysterically, until he slumped over in silence, dead. Another man died shortly after, and then another. Their bodies were tossed into the sea.
It took the surviving party close to two weeks to retrace its path, only to then realize that they had found the strait [of Magellan] all along. Now they had to start east all over again.”
Source: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
“I wanted to hold on to him as if he were the last sane thing in the world, even if it meant the end of me.”
Source: Borne
“You never go mad all at once. It seeps in, whisper by whisper.”
Source: The Whisper Between Us
“Madness is the key. Elijah laughed at the frenzied priests of Baal because he knew with prophetic certainty that they were mad; the hooligan boys who laughed at Elisha did so because they thought he – and his God – were mad. High priests, soldiers, crowds and thieves laughed at Christ during his trial and passion, sure that the wretched fellow was mad: he had insane delusions about rebuilding the Temple in three days and being the Son of God (just as today cartoonists may sketch a madman as someone who believes he is Napoleon).”
Source: Laughter at the Foot of the Cross
“Oh, sure, one can overdo it, and our history is darkly stained with abortive religious movements inspired by messianic crackpots. But it appears to be a continuum: too much and you end up in the realm of a Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Charles Manson, all of whom were able to lead others into a maelstrom of paranoid delusion. In the cases of Jones and Koresh, one can only do armchair forensic psychiatry to try to guess their afflictions, but Manson, alive and well, is a diagnosed schizophrenic. However, if you get the metamagical thoughts and behaviors to the right extent and at the right time and place, then people might just get the day off from work on your birthday for a long time to come.”
Source: The Trouble with Testosterone and Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament
“If you remember me, you’ll try to be me. If you forget me, you’ll be yourself. And yourself was always what was needed.”
Source: The Boxmaker’s Apprentice
“Do you think I've gone round the bend?'
'I'm afraid so.
You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head.
But I'll tell you a secret.
All the best people are.”
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
“THIS IS MADNESS,” TOM HISSED.
"You said that already,” I whispered.
“And yet, here we are, still doing it. So, if you don’t mind: This is madness.”
Source: The Blackthorn Key
“What was my mad heart dreaming of?”
Source: Come Close
“Yet, the light outside is not the same.
It ticks with madness,
expelled by angry bodies.
Natural light has been
outshone by the fire
of angry, wrathful metal.
So we hide, away from war
and the comforting faces
we once shared our lives with.”
Source: All the Hope We Carry