# Quote — Stephen King, Danse Macabre

> If we are all insane, then all insanity becomes a matter of degree. If your insanity leads you to carve up women like Jack the Ripper or the Cleveland Torso Murderer, we clap you away in the funny farm (except neither of those two amateur-night surgeons were ever caught, heh-heh-heh); if, on the other hand, your insanity leads you only to talk to yourself when you're under stress or to pick your nose on your morning bus, then you are left alone to go about your business...although it's doubtful that you will ever be invited to the best parties.

- Author: [Stephen King](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king.md)
- Book: [Danse Macabre](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/danse-macabre.md)
- Page: 174
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Danse_Macabre_(book)#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/danse-macabre/if-we-are

## More from this book

> I think we're all a little mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better-and maybe not all that much better, after all.

p. 184 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/danse-macabre/i-think-were.md)

> ...but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force...

p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/danse-macabre/but-talent-is-a-dreadfully.md)

> The danse macabre is a waltz with death. This is a truth we cannot afford to shy away from. Like the rides in the amusement park which mimic violent death, the tale of horror is a chance to examine what's going on behind doors which we usually keep double-locked. Yet the human imagination is not content with locked doors. Somewhere there is another dancing partner, the imagination whispers in the night - a partner in a rotting ball gown, a partner with empty eyesockets, green mold growing on her elbow-length gloves, maggots squirming in the thin remains of her hair. To hold such a creature in our arms? Who, you ask me, would be so mad? Well...?

p. 366 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/stephen-king/danse-macabre/the-danse-macabre.md)