Norman Mailer Quotes

Not crazy in a 'let's paint the kitchen bright red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God' sort of way. Gone were the days when she would stand on the deck lighting lemon-scented candles without then having to eat the wax.p28

Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can't even think straight.

I can only presume that you have gone out of your mind.

The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum.

The man is either mad, or he is making verses.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

With mania, is it dangerous to ride that euphoric feeling. You feel very animated and creative; I would fill journals with drawings. It feels good and you want it to last, but it can lead to being delusional. The delusions can be as real as you thinking you can fly.

When I was younger - it might be a romantic idea - I always thought I might go crazy.

If I had known being insane was so much fun, I'd have gone crazy long ago.

What frightens us most in a madman is his sane conversation.

Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself.

Men are mad most of their lives; few live sane, fewer die so. The acts of people are baffling unless we realize that their wits are disordered. Man is driven to justice by his lunacy.

I don't think you ever know in yourself whether you have gone mad.

When you are insane, you are busy being insane - all the time.

Possibly he knew, as he wrote this, that he was mad - because inside every madman sits a little sane man saying 'You're mad, you're mad.'

In madness, I thought I was the most important person in the world.

I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them.

I doubt if a single individual could be found from the whole of mankind free from some form of insanity. The only difference is one of degree. A man who sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane because this happens to very few people.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

Perhaps I'm absolutely bonkers and don't know it. Perhaps I'm psychotically mental.

... the work of lunatics.

… the ravings of a maniac

The general opinion of Lugard is that he is a lunatic …