As far as I could see, life demanded skills I didn't have.

Crazy isn't being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It's you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.

Our hospital was famous and housed many great poets and singers. Did the hospital specialize in poets and singers or was it that poets and singers specialized in madness?

For many of us, the hospital was as much a refuge as it was a prison. Though we were cut off from the world and all the trouble we enjoyed stirring up out there, we were also cut off from the demands and expectations that had driven us crazy. What could be expected of us now that we were stowed away in a loony bin?

My family had a lot of characteristics - achievements, ambitions, talents, expectations - that all seemed to be recessive in me.

With wild eyes that had seen freedom.

A thought is a hard thing to control.