R. D. Laing Quotes

When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.

Some call it schizophrenia, I call it a career

In describing one way of going mad, I shall try to show that there is a comprehensible transition from the sane schizoid way of being-in-the-world to a psychotic way of being-in-the-world.

Schizophrenia is a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo- social realities.

He stares at me, and then leans back in his chair. "He's ill, Jacob." I say nothing. "He's a paragon schnitzophonic." "He's what?!" "Paragon schnitzophonic," repeats Uncle Al. "You mean paranoid schizophrenic?" "Sure. Whatever. But the bottom line is he's mad as a hatter.

No one has schizophrenia, like having a cold. The patient has not "got" schizophrenia. He is schizophrenic.

There are not schizophrenics. There are people with schizophrenia and these people may be your spouse, they may be your child, they may be your neighbor, they may be your friend, they may be your coworker.

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.

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.

As well as being one of the worst things that can happen to a human being, schizophrenia can also be one of the richest learning and humanizing experiences life offers.

...Someone speaks in soft tones to me and says I am psychotic, but it's going to be all right. I put on my hat, unperturbed, and ask for some crayons.

Oh, and I certainly don't suffer from schizophrenia. I quite enjoy it. And so do I.

People who have visions should go see a doctor.

My mother is schizophrenic. I would love to be brave enough to learn more about it. I try to understand her, I try to be positive about it. She can be so absent and tired by her medication; sometimes she's so lucid, funny, and smart.

A schizophrenic is a person who already has a natural tendency to absent himself from this world.

Schizophrenia is the name for a condition that most psychiatrists ascribe to patients they call schizophrenic.

Revelation is where all crazy people end up. It's the last stop on the nutso express.

My experience is that when one is in psychosis, you're on a mission and nothing is going to stop you. At some level your brain is telling you you probably shouldn't be doing this, but you're on a mission.

The schizophrenic mind is not so much split as shattered. I like to say schizophrenia is like a waking nightmare.

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

That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.

Once you've been talked to by voices, it's not possible to go back to a world where talking voices is not possible.

It's getting harder and harder to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone. It still brings me up short to walk by somebody who appears to be talking to themselves.