"Imagine, [Kriezler] said, that you enter a large, somewhat crumbling hall that echoes with the sounds of people mumbling and talking repetitively to themselves. All around you these people fall into prostrate positions, some of them weeping. Where are you? Sara’s answer was immediate: in an asylum. Perhaps, Kreizler answered, but you could also be in a church. In the one place the behavior would be considered mad; in the other, not only sane, but as respectable as any human activity can be."

You may also like:

• 

  David McCullough
  Author

• 

  E. L. Doctorow
  Author

• 

  Lucien Carr
  

• 

  Matthew Pearl
  Novelist

• 

  Michael Connelly
  Author

• 

  Paul Schrader
  Screenwriter

• 

  Renny Harlin
  Film director

• 

  Robert Cowley
  

• 

  William Peter Blatty
  Writer