A Quote by Maxine Hong Kingston

The difference between mad people and sane people... is that sane people have variety when they talk-story. Mad people have only one story that they talk over and over.
You can talk about things indirectly, but if you want to talk how people really talk, you have to talk R-rated. I mean I've got three incredibly intelligent daughters, but when you get mad, you get mad and you talk like people talk. When a normal 17-year-old girl storms out of the house or 15-year-old boy is mad at his mom or dad, they're not talking the way people talk on TV. Unless it's cable.
If you live with unhealthy people, to be healthy is dangerous. If you live with insane people, then to be sane is dangerous. If you live in a madhouse, even if you are not mad at least pretend that you are mad; otherwise those mad people will kill you.
The idea that all the people locked up in mental hospitals are sane while all the people walking about are mad is merely a literary cliche, put about by people who should be locked up. I assure you there is not much in it. Taken as a whole, the sane are out there the sick are in here. For example you are in here because you have delusions that sane people are put in mental hospitals.
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved.
There are a great many good people, and a great many sane people here this afternoon. Unfortunately, by a kind of coincidence, all the good people are mad, and all the sane people are wicked.
The only people for me are the mad ones: the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who... burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles.
Chess is not something that drives people mad; it is something that keeps mad people sane.
--Why are we fighting them? --They're mad. We're sane. --How do we know? --That we're sane? --Yes. --Am I sane? --To all appearances. --And you, do you consider yourself sane? --I do. --Well, there you have it. --But don't they also consider themselves sane? --I think they know. Deep down. That they're not sane. --How must that make them feel? --Terrible, I should think. They must fight ever more fiercely, in order to deny what they know to be true. That they are not sane.
I’ve known a lot of people go mad over the years, and it is more distressing than people dying. People dying is quite natural, people going mad is the complete antithesis of that.
the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
It's when I make a joke about Indian people and then a white person comes up to me and says, "That's wrong. You should not talk about Indian people," and the Indian people are over in the audience like, "I thought that joke was hilarious." That is so weird. Then why are you getting mad? You're burning unnecessary calories. You're getting made for the sake of getting mad. I don't understand it.
All inventors, they say, are a little mad. I reckon that only completely sane people are willing to admit they are slightly crazy.
There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.
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.'
I play enough other mad people, as well and some sane people, to vary the palette of what's scrabbling around in my head and soul to bring to the floor, as a storyteller.
We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!
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