Donald Barthelme Quotes

Sometimes I think that if I wasn't crazy... I'd go crazy.

From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I am always quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.

Everyone's crazy anyway. And those who think they aren't, are the ones who are even crazier - because they're in denial.

I proved to my own satisfaction that I am madder than I think.

Oh yes! The one man in the world who never believes he's mad is the madman.

I realized either I was crazy or the world was crazy; and I picked on the world. And of course I was right.

Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally.

There's still always the possibility that I've gone totally, clinically cuckoo. But somehow I don't think so anymore. An article I once read said that crazy people don't worry about being crazy - that's the whole problem.

I'm not much crazier than anybody else, but I'm not much saner.

Crazy people don't sit around wondering if they're nuts.

I'm not a madman.

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

I'm probably more insane than most people and less than a lot of others. I'm somewhere in the middle.

I know I look crazy, but I am not!

I'm the last person to claim that I'm sane.

Sometimes you think the whole world is falling, and it's only yourself that's leaning.

If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.

Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness?

I have toyed with the idea of playing it straight. But, like I say, I really believe we are all out of our minds at some level.

Madmen always think it's the others who are mad.

Somewhere in this process you will come face-to-face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way and you just never noticed. You are also no crazier than everybody else around you. The only real difference is that you have confronted the situation they have not.

A lot of the time I'm semi-insane, but there is a slight bit of intelligence there.

I have a very highly developed sense of denial.

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.

For a long time, I would go out of my way to have a personal appearance on the verge of an insane person, because it was closer to how I felt, but I looked so dumb. So, I just stopped. It was like, 'I'm just going to look like a banker.'