“
MR. KHARIS: 'Does Mr. Celine seriously suggest that the United States Government is in need of a guardian?'
MR. CELINE: 'I am merely offering a way out for your client. Any private individual with a record of such incessant murder and robbery would be glad to cop an insanity plea. Do you insist that your client was in full possession of its reason at Wounded Knee? At Hiroshima? At Dresden?'
JUSTICE IMMHOTEP: 'You become facetious, Mr. Celine.'
MR. CELINE: 'I have never been more serious.
”
”
Robert Anton Wilson (The Eye in the Pyramid (Illuminatus, #1))
“
The diversity of sounds rule my ever presence with their highs and blows, encompassing the totality of sensual experience. I'm a child of the sirens of knowledge, a warrior for the truth in a world of washed perspectives and harsh realities. My voice cries the initial cry of the unborn into the perplexing illusion. I long for the realization of the human drama, the defeat of the dogs war, and the unity of existence. The beloved Gods of virtue have been undersold for the bleeding bread of empathy. I now awaist the triumphant roar of destiny, dressed in the inviting hand of a mother, perplexed by discovering, aroused by spirit. The door is open, the road transformed. The exit code to civilization is hacked beyond dispair, chased but the moon toward the freeing sun, on our journey to light. This is an open plea to the beautiful insanity of your hearts. It is time to consummate the kiss of oblivion into the obsidian of love!
”
”
Serj Tankian
“
Once again, he does something and I can't decide if it's sweet, if it's perverted, or if it's criminal.
”
”
Dm. L. Carter (Insanity Plea)
“
Trump's defense is in his tweets. Insanity.
”
”
A.K. Kuykendall
“
Men often have grievances against prominent and powerful persons. Historically, the grievances of the powerless against the powerful have furnished the steam for the engines of revolutions. My point is that in many of the famous medicolegal cases involving the issue of insanity, persons of relatively low social rank openly attacked their superiors. Perhaps their grievances were real and justified, and were vented on the contemporary social symbols of authority, the King and the Queen. Whether or not these grievances justified homicide is not our problem here. I merely wish to suggest that the issue of insanity may have been raised in these trials to obscure the social problems which the crimes intended to dramatize.
”
”
Thomas Szasz (Law, Liberty and Psychiatry)
“
It's really hell being crazy sometimes.
”
”
Dm. L. Carter (Insanity Plea)
“
Neither he [Ferenczi] nor Freud believed that a person should be exempted from legal punishment--or worse, that he should be punished by compulsory psychiatric "treatments"--because of psychoanalytic information about him. In the light of current thought, this is a startling and sobering fact.
”
”
Thomas Szasz
“
Dwayne's bad chemicals made him take a loaded thirty-eight caliber revolver from
under his pillow and stick it in his mouth. This was a tool whose only purpose was to
make holes in human beings. It looked like this:
In Dwayne's part of the planet, anybody who wanted one could get one down at his
local hardware store. Policemen all had them. So did the criminals. So did the people
caught in between.
Criminals would point guns at people and say, "Give me all your money," and the
people usually would. And policemen would point their guns at criminals and say, "Stop"
or whatever the situation called for, and the criminals usually would. Sometimes they
wouldn't. Sometimes a wife would get so mad at her husband that she would put a hole
in him with a gun. Sometimes a husband would get so mad at his wife that he would put
a hole in her. And so on.
In the same week Dwayne Hoover ran amok, a fourteen-year-old Midland City boy
put holes in his mother and father because he didn't want to show them the bad report
card he had brought home. His lawyer planned to enter a plea of temporary insanity,
which meant that at the time of the shooting the boy was unable to distinguish the
difference between right and wrong.
· Sometimes people would put holes in famous people so they could be at least fairly
famous, too. Sometimes people would get on airplanes which were supposed to fly to
someplace, and they would offer to put holes in the pilot and co-pilot unless they flew
the airplane to someplace else.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Breakfast of Champions)
“
So I turn the mic toward the fields, and the crowd just goes insane, singing my song, chanting my plea.
I leave them at it and I take a little walk around the stage. The rest of the band sees what's going on so they just keep repping the chorus. When I get closer to the side of the stage, I see her there, where she always felts most comfortable, thought for the foreseeable future, she'll be the one out here in the spotlight, and I'll be the one in the wings, and that feels right, too.
”
”
Gayle Forman (Where She Went (If I Stay, #2))
“
To the infra-human specimens of this benighted scientific age the ritual and worship connected with the art of healing as practiced at Epidaurus seems like sheer buncombe. In our world the blind lead the blind and the sick go to the sick to be cured. We are making constant progress, but it is a progress which leads to the operating table, to the poor house, to the insane asylum, to the trenches. We have no healers – we have only butchers whose knowledge of anatomy entitles them to a diploma, which in turn entitles them to carve out or amputate our illnesses so that we may carry on in cripple fashion until such time as we are fit for the slaughterhouse. We announce the discovery of this cure and that but make no mention of the new diseases which we have created en route. The medical cult operates very much like the war office – the triumphs which they broadcast are sops thrown out to conceal death and disaster. The medicos, like the military authorities, are helpless; they are waging a hopeless fight from the start. What man wants is peace in order that he may live. Defeating our neighbor doesn’t give peace any more than curing cancer brings health. Man doesn’t begin to live through triumphing over his enemy nor does he begin to acquire health through endless cures. The joy of life comes through peace, which is not static but dynamic. No man can really say that he knows what joy is until he has experienced peace. And without joy there is no life, even if you have a dozen cars, six butlers, a castle, a private chapel and a bomb-proof vault. Our diseases are our attachments, be they habits, ideologies, ideals, principles, possessions, phobias, gods, cults, religions, what you please. Good wages can be a disease just as much as bad wages. Leisure can be just as great a disease as work. Whatever we cling to, even if it be hope or faith, can be the disease which carries us off. Surrender is absolute: if you cling to even the tiniest crumb you nourish the germ which will devour you. As for clinging to God, God long ago abandoned us in order that we might realize the joy of attaining godhood through our own efforts. All this whimpering that is going on in the dark, this insistent, piteous plea for peace which will grow bigger as the pain and the misery increase, where is it to be found? Peace, do people imagine that it is something to cornered, like corn or wheat? Is it something which can be pounded upon and devoured, as with wolves fighting over a carcass? I hear people talking about peace and their faces are clouded with anger or with hatred or with scorn and disdain, with pride and arrogance. There are people who want to fight to bring about peace- the most deluded souls of all. There will be no peace until murder is eliminated from the heart and mind. Murder is the apex of the broad pyramid whose base is the self. That which stands will have to fall. Everything which man has fought for will have to be relinquished before he can begin to live as man. Up till now he has been a sick beast and even his divinity stinks. He is master of many worlds and in his own he is a slave. What rules the world is the heart, not the brain, in every realm our conquests bring only death. We have turned our backs on the one realm wherein freedom lies. At Epidaurus, in the stillness, in the great peace that came over me, I heard the heart of the world beat. I know what the cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world.
”
”
Henry Miller
“
Trumpets blared.
’Denham’s Dentifrice.’
Shut up, thought Montag. Consider the lilies of the field.
’Denham’s Dentifrice.’
They toil not —
’Denham’s —’
He tore the book open and flicked the pages and felt them as if he were blind, he picked at the shape of the individual letters, not blinking.
’Denham’s. Spelled: D-E-N —’
They toil not, neither do they …
A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve.
’Denham’s does it!’
Consider the lilies, the lilies, the lilies …
’Denham’s dental detergent.’
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ It was a plea, a cry so terrible that Montag found himself on his feet, the shocked inhabitants of the loud car staring, moving back from this man with the insane, gorged face, the gibbering, dry mouth, the flapping book in his fist. The people who have been sitting a moment before, tapping their feet to the rhythm of Denham’s Dentifrice, Denham’s Dandy Dental Detergent, Denham’s Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice, one two, one two three, one two, one two three. The people whose mouths had been faintly twitching the words Dentifrice Dentifrice Dentifrice. The train radio vomited upon Montag, in retaliation, a great ton-load of music made of tin, copper, silver, chromium, and brass. The people were pounded into submission; they did not run; there was no place to run; the great air-train fell down its shafts in the earth.
’Lilies of the field.’
’Denham’s.’
’Lilies, I said!’
The people stared.
’Call the guard.’
’The man’s off —’
’Knoll View!’
The train hissed to its stop.
’Knoll View!’ A cry.
’Denham’s.’ A whisper.
Montag’s mouth barely moved. ‘Lilies …’
The train door whistled open. Montag stood. The door gasped, started shut. Only then did he leap past the other passengers, screaming his mind, plunge through the slicing door only in time. He rain on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators, because he wanted to feel his feet move, arms swing, lungs clench, unclench, feel his throat go raw with air. A voice drifted after him, ‘Denham’s Denham’s Denham’s,’ the train hissed like a snake. The train vanished in its hole.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
“
Islam tells us that on the unappealable Day
of Judgment, all who have perpetrated images
of living things will reawaken with their works,
and will be ordered to blow life into them, and
they will fail, and they and their works will be
cast into the fires of punishment. As a child, I
knew that horror of the spectral duplication or
multiplication of reality, but mine would come
as I stood before large mirrors. As soon as it
began to grow dark outside, the constant,
infallible functioning of mirrors, the way they
followed my every movement, their cosmic
pantomime, would seem eerie to me. One of my
insistent pleas to God and my guardian angel
was that I not dream of mirrors; I recall clearly
that I would keep one eye on them uneasily. I
feared sometimes that they would begin to veer
off from reality; other times, that I would see
my face in them disfigured by strange
misfortunes. I have learned that this horror is
monstrously abroad in the world again. The
story is quite simple, and terribly unpleasant.
In 1927, I met a grave young woman, first by
telephone (because Julia began as a voice
without a name or face) and then on a corner at
nightfall. Her eyes were alarmingly large, her
hair jet black and straight, her figure severe.
She was the granddaughter and greatgranddaughter of Federalists, as I was the
grandson and great-grandson of Unitarians,*
but that ancient discord between our lineages
was, for us, a bond, a fuller possession of our
homeland. She lived with her family in a big
run-down high-ceiling'd house, in the
resentment and savorlessness of genteel
poverty. In the afternoons— only very rarely at
night—we would go out walking through her
neighbor-hood, which was Balvanera.* We
would stroll along beside the high blank wall of
the railway yard; once we walked down Sarmien
to all the way to the cleared grounds of the
Parque Centenario.*Between us there was
neither love itself nor the fiction of love; I
sensed in her an intensity that was utterly
unlike the intensity of eroticism, and I feared it.
In order to forge an intimacy with women, one
often tells them about true or apocryphal things
that happened in one's youth; I must have told
her at some point about my horror of mirrors,
and so in 1928 I must have planted the
hallucination that was to flower in 1931. Now I
have just learned that she has gone insane, and
that in her room all the mirrors are covered,
because she sees my reflection in them—
usurping her own—and she trembles and
cannot speak, and says that I am magically
following her, watching her, stalking her.
What dreadful bondage, the bondage of my
face—or one of my former faces. Its odious fate
makes me odious as well, but I don't care
anymore.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
For the most part, winning an acquittal with an insanity plea is so difficult that few defense lawyers attempt it. In the last hundred years, barely one percent of all felons brought to trial in this country have resorted to this tactic. And of that tiny minority, only one in three has been found NGRI (“not guilty by reason of insanity”).
”
”
Harold Schechter (The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers)
“
Kim knew there was no room for him to offer an insanity plea. Each crime had taken intricate and diligent planning and faultless execution.
”
”
Angela Marsons (Twisted Lies (DI Kim Stone, #14))
“
If, he said, Richard wanted to plead guilty, so be it. However, he pointed out to Richard that an insanity plea might be the way to go. Richard didn’t like that idea and shot it right down; he was not, he said, insane. He was different, and he followed the dictates of his own mind and desires, rather than a hypocritically dogmatic society’s, he said.
”
”
Philip Carlo (The Night Stalker: The Disturbing Life and Chilling Crimes of Richard Ramirez)
“
brother.” “Oh,” he replied, seating
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Sin’s outcome is eternal misery. What infinite ugliness then must be the ugliness of sin. This is the constant subject of preaching, for this is what we must ever overcome. It is more serious than Satan and sickness and insanity. None of those can damn a soul. Only sin can damn. This we must defeat in preaching, or all is in vain. Flippancy in and around our preaching communicates to people that sin is not as serious as the Bible says it is.
”
”
John Piper (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry)
“
Enoch almost laughed out loud. The absurd lengths to which the Accuser would go to construct an entire paradigm of delusion to suit his purposes amazed the human. He wondered if anyone would ever actually believe this combination of insanity and iniquity. Ironically, he could see where the Accuser was going with it, and it was truly evil. He would make sure to address it in his rebuttal. The Accuser ended with a rising plea. “Does your unfair favoritism and partiality know no bounds, Elohim? You choose who rules over whom, who is forgiven and who is not, you elect one man over another to carry your purposes forward. These are not the actions of a fair and impartial Creator, these are the actions of — dare I say it again — a tyrant and puppet master! But of course, if the sandal fits, wear it. Your honor. Amen.” The Accuser bowed and went back to his team of Watchers.
”
”
Brian Godawa (Enoch Primordial (Chronicles of the Nephilim #2))
“
Behind the razor wire and barred windows were some of the most violent men in the state of Florida. Murderers, robbers, pedophiles, rapists.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
hoping some would-be robber or rapist or killer would find her and do her the favor of ending what she herself could not. But nothing bad had ever happened.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Arson in 2-6, home invasion in 2-10, cocaine trafficking in 5-7: Pick a courtroom—any courtroom—and you’d be sure to be horrified.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
they would not be allowed to mourn him when he passed, either. They were just supposed to watch quietly with the rest of the witnesses when the warden pulled the black curtain back and the crowd outside the prison gates began to cheer. . . .
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Corrections had also sized his orange jumpsuit wrong—which they were known to do with child molesters and other particularly repugnant inmates—making him appear smaller and slighter
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Simply put, Rick was like cheesecake—sinfully rich, luscious, and oh-so-bad for you.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
She probably should’ve seen it coming, but she’d put too much faith in the system. And that was a hard pill to swallow.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Librarians were paid shit and required a masters; chefs traveled the world. Cooking school it was.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
A fan of L.A. Law reruns and Law & Order, she’d put lawyer down on the list, hung up the phone, and taken the LSAT. Four years of night school and a shitload of student loans later, she was an attorney.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
It wasn’t a New York salary, that was for sure, but Miami was much prettier to look at in February and it did come with lots of crime—great job security for a prosecutor.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Your fear of failure should never be greater than your fear of regret.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
NO SUSPECTS IN GABLES MASSACRE blared the front-page headline in her hands.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
It was the pit prosecutors, as attorneys in division were known, that handled most of Miami’s 40,000+ felony arrests each year.
”
”
Jilliane Hoffman (Plea of Insanity)
“
A WHILE BACK, a game designer friend of mine named Phil Fish made a plea on Twitter, “Hey bloggers, no more ‘blank rebuilt in Minecraft’ posts, please. We get it. You can make things in Minecraft. Thanks.” Fish was referring to the popular online game Minecraft, in which players hunt for resources that are used to construct models and apparatuses with the game’s characteristic, cubical visual style. The Internet being what it is, given such tools extreme fans do insane things, like elaborately reconstructing the city King’s Landing from Game of Thrones using nothing but this square matter mined from Minecraft. Seeing Fish’s tweet, an enterprising ironoiac recreated the form of the embedded tweet itself inside Minecraft, a fact that the tech blog VentureBeat then dutifully blogged about, thus completing not one but two cycles of an ironoia self-treatment the environmental philosopher Timothy Morton names “anything you can do I can do meta.”14 In a futile attempt to prevent further metastasis, the blogger concluded his post with the line, “Yes, we’re fully aware of the irony of this post.”15 But rather than satisfying anyone, such a provocation only further irritated the ironoiac itch. Fish tweeted a link to the blog post covering the Minecraft construction of a model of Fish’s tweet protesting blog posts about Minecraft constructions, which one of his followers one-upped by observing the fact that Fish had in fact “tweeted about somebody blogging about somebody making [his] tweet about Minecraft in Minecraft.” Another chimed in, “How long ’til someone recreates that blog post in Minecraft?” Each step represents an attempt to overcome the absurdity of the last by fixing it in a new voice, even though each ironic gesture was evanescent, quickly replaced by yet another layer of buffer from yet another desperate ironoiac. Why do we do it, then? Today, satisfaction is more elusive than ever. In part, the precarity of life after the 2008 global financial collapse and the Great Recession that followed it (and whose effects still linger) makes every transaction with the world feel suspect and risky. We fear that things might turn on us, because we have good evidence that they can, and do. But
”
”
Ian Bogost (Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games)
“
My hand around her throat. Her nails clawing at my skin. Her whimpers and pleas as I edged her toward insanity before I fucked the fight right out of her.
”
”
Ana Huang (Twisted Hate (Twisted, #3))
“
Title: “Dam Woman”
(Verse 1)
Dam woman, why you keep bothering me?
Every time I try to do something, you got another plea,
I’m fixin’ the truck, you want the fence mended,
Can’t you see, my patience is ended?
(Chorus)
Dam woman, can’t you see?
I’m tryin’ to get things done, just let me be,
You got me runnin’ ‘round, like a dog on a chain,
Dam woman, you’re drivin’ me insane.
(Verse 2)
I’m mowin’ the lawn, you need the roof fixed,
Every time I turn around, there’s another twist,
I’m paintin’ the barn, you want the porch cleaned,
Dam woman, you’re messin’ with my routine.
(Chorus)
Dam woman, can’t you see?
I’m tryin’ to get things done, just let me be,
You got me runnin’ ‘round, like a dog on a chain,
Dam woman, you’re drivin’ me insane.
(Bridge)
I can’t even get out the door without you needing something,
Got me wishin’ for a little break,
Every time I think I’ve got it right,
She’s got another task in sight.
(Chorus)
Dam woman, can’t you see?
I’m tryin’ to get things done, just let me be,
You got me runnin’ ‘round, like a dog on a chain,
Dam woman, you’re drivin’ me insane.
(Outro)
So here I am, just tryin’ to cope,
Hopin’ she’ll give me a little hope,
Dam woman, you’re my favorite pain,
Even if you drive me insane.
”
”
James Hilton-Cowboy
“
Perhaps we shouldn’t see each other for a few days. I’ve never been so tired in my life.” She tried to give him a gracious way out. Raven looked down at her hands. She wanted to give herself an out, too. She had never felt so close to anyone, so comfortable, as if she had known him forever, yet was terrified that he would take her over. “And I don’t think your family was thrilled to see an American with you. We’re too…explosive together,” she finished ruefully.
“Do not try to leave me, Raven.” The car drew up in front of the inn. “I hold what is mine, and make no mistake, you are mine.” It was both a warning and a plea. He had no time for soft words. He wanted to give pretty words to her--God knew she deserved them--but the others were waiting, and his responsibilities weighed heavily on him.
She raised her hand to the line of his jaw, rubbing gently. “You’re so used to having your own way.” There was a smile in her voice. “I can go to sleep all by myself, Mikhail. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“You need to sleep untroubled, undisturbed, deeply. What you saw tonight will haunt you if I do not help you.” His thumb stroked across her lower lip. “I could remove the memory if you wished.”
Raven could see he wanted to do it, believed that it would be best for her. She could see it was difficult to ask her to make a decision. “No thank you, Mikhail,” she murmured demurely. “I think I’ll keep all my memories, good and bad.” She kissed his chin, slid across the seat to the door. “You know, I’m not a porcelain doll. I won’t break because I see something I shouldn’t. I’ve chased serial killers before.” She smiled at him, her eyes sad.
He shackled her wrist in an unbreakable grip. “And it almost destroyed you. Not this time.”
Her lashes swept down, hiding her expression. “That’s not your decision.” If others persuaded him to use his talents to chase the insane, evil killers in the world, she would not leave him alone. How could she?
“You are not nearly as afraid of me as you should be,” he growled.
She flashed him another smile, tugging at her wrist to remind him to release her. “I think you know what’s between us would be worth nothing if you forced me to do your will in everything.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Prince (Dark, #1))
“
Did she plea insane?
No need, no sane person would have done what she did.
So did she end up in Broadmoor or some psych ward?
Nah. They did her as a regular.
”
”
Et Imperatrix Noctem
“
The worst part of it was watching Shapiro exploit this screwup. He filed a motion to halt the grand jury hearing on grounds of excessive publicity. At a hearing hastily convened on Friday in the courtroom of a former prosecutor named Lance Ito, Shapiro was preening like a peacock in full plumage. He accused the D.A.‘s office of misconduct in making “improper expressions of personal opinion.” He cited my “sole murderer” slip as well as Gil’s speculation that Simpson might cop an insanity plea. I couldn’t let this pass. “Robert Shapiro has lost no opportunity to exploit coverage in this case to get sympathy for his client,” I told the court. “He has been no stranger to the spotlight.
”
”
Marcia Clark (Without a Doubt)
“
Near the grave of Muhammad Abu Khdeir was that of another murdered family member. In 2009, a Jewish Israeli murdered Amjad Abu Khdeir in a random racist attack. According to family members, the killer was also allowed to file an insanity plea that let him off with the lightest possible sentence. “It’s not just our family that’s at risk. Every family here in the occupied areas has lost someone,” Hussein Abu Khdeir said.
Just days before I met the Abu Khdeirs, two of their friends from nearby Beit Hanina, twenty-year-olds Amir Shweiki and Sameer Mahfouz, were beaten by a mob of pipe and baseball bat–wielding settlers in central Jerusalem. Ten young Jewish nationalists were said to have beaten the young men nearly to death, but none have been sentenced at the time of this writing. “Everyone’s scared to let their kids out because at any moment a settler can take your kids and just keep going,” Thawra Abu Khdeir said.
”
”
Max Blumenthal (The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza)