January Madness

Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness.” – From Karen Joy Fowler’s 1991 novel “Sarah Canary”.  

Madness—a recurring theme through the arts and sciences:

  1. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. – Friedrich Nietzsche
  2. I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw. – William Shakespeare, Hamlet
  3. Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.” – The Joker, The Dark Knight
  4. The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad. – Salvador Dalí
  5.  Oh, you can’t help that… We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, the Chesire Cat.
  6. The edge…There is no honest way to explain it, because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” – Hunter S. Thompson
  7. You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
  8. The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.” – G.K. Chesterton
  9. “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” – Marilyn Monroe
  10. Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t. – William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Source: Mental Health by the Numbers, NAMI. Graphic: The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893, Munch Museum, Norway. Public Domain.