Vittorino Andreoli

"We sell them weapons, because the disease of power has spread everywhere, and they throw away every resource, even human lives, to wage and win wars, wars of misery."

"Sometimes you lose because you didn't choose the right field of trial."

"An adult man cannot be reduced to an active and productive man."

"(Commenting on the 1904 law on mental hospitals, inspired by the principles of the anthropological-positive school and Cesare Lombroso) Prison and Psychiatric hospital are consistently two ways of defending against criminals and the insane, particularly against their dangerousness. The insane are not responsible for their actions (and therefore not punishable), but for this very reason their wishes cannot be respected when it comes to committing them to an asylum: the will of the community must prevail over that of the individual. Insanity, after all, could not be cured, only restrained and contained: this was the task of psychiatry. (Il manicomio del 1904, p. 50)"

"Madness is an integral part of culture, and the madman is a citizen of society, even when he is confined to an asylum. It is not possible to understand madness by dealing only with madness. On the other hand, one cannot have a complete picture of a society without the chapter on its madness. (Intorno alla follia, p. 62)"

"Even for history there is a “principle of indeterminacy” and here too, in defining some facts, one must give up describing others. The impression arises that many accounts of a historical period are possible depending on what one chooses and consequently eliminates. And it is impossible to tell a story without making choices. (Intorno alla follia, p. 63)"

"The name Gustave Le Bon recalls that of Gabriel Tarde, who in 1890 published ‘'The Laws of Imitation’' and argued that the psychological phenomenon of imitation can explain all forms of social bonding and all the secrets of social life. With Tarde, the sociological dispute was already alive. It was this author, in contrast to the dominant sociologist of the time, Émile Durkheim, who claimed that the era of non-psychological sociology (that of Durkheim, in fact) was over. If Auguste Comte is the founder of sociology, Tarde deserves credit for founding social psychology. (Intorno alla follia, p. 65)"

"While scientific discoveries, however great, may not have immediate repercussions on lifestyle and daily life, it is precisely technology that brings about immediate practical upheavals, usually considered positive. Science always changes ideas (of science itself or of culture), while technology has little impact on them and mostly only indirectly through the subversion of ordinary processes of existence. (Intorno alla follia, p. 70)"

"Frank Wedekind, actor and playwright, focuses his performances on sex and its perversions with the aim of exposing the hypocritical respectability of the bourgeoisie of the time. He proposes the morality of erotic impulse as an alternative to bourgeois morality. (Intorno alla follia, p. 79)"

"In 1950-51, Maxwell Jones invented, as an alternative to psychiatric hospitals, small therapeutic communities made up of patients and psychiatric and social workers, managed on the basis of collective participation and dynamics that were intended to bring out the abilities and qualities of each individual. The model of the extended family or village will go beyond psychiatry to apply to the problems of marginalization (from prisoners to drug addicts, the disabled, and the elderly). (La società o la fabbrica della follia, p. 131)"

"Falsification is a term that has entered everyday language. It was introduced by Karl Popper. Every scientific result must be questionable and, therefore, imperfect, the starting point for new experiments for progressive, but never definitive, perfection. Scientific research is the never-ending story of corrections to previously obtained data, a story that has the limits of Tantalus. The definitive is dogmatism; it can be asserted but not proven. The great system of Bacon and Galileo has been decisively destroyed, precisely in the method that founded it. (Requiem per la verità, p. 333-334)"

"Paul Feyerabend described science as a place of anarchy based not on logical-rational method but on protocols, the tools of the trade. Science is, therefore, a ‘relative’ discipline, capable of affirming truth only in relation to data conventionally compared: a truth-error. (Requiem per la verità, p. 334)"

"Sexuality is also dying. Once upon a time, the penis had great significance and could be an ideological foundation. Today, it is an appendage of the body without qualities. No plans are made for the penis anymore. It is an intriguing and dangerous organ. It can generate in an overpopulated world. Better the power of an engine. Impotence has never been as high as in the contemporary world. You are male because of your motorcycle, your tattoo, your abdominal muscles, and your beard; the penis has nothing to do with it. (Requiem per la verità, p. 335)"

"Vittorino Andreoli, I miei matti, Rizzoli, 2004."

"Vittorino Andreoli, L'uomo di vetro, Rizzoli, 2008."

"Vittorino Andreoli, Lettera a un adolescente, Rizzoli, 2004."

"Vittorino Andreoli, Preti di carta. Storie di santi ed eretici, asceti e libertini, esorcisti e guaritori, Piemme, 2010."

"Vittorino Andreoli, Preti. Viaggio fra gli uomini del sacro, Piemme, 2010. ISBN 9788856615197"

"Vittorino Andreoli, Tra un'ora, la follia, Rizzoli, 1999."

"Vittorino Andreoli, Un secolo di follia, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, Milano, 1998. ISBN 88-17-11838-9"

"Sucking is the gesture of life, the way in which a newborn baby lives. It attaches itself to the breast and devours it. Life passes from the mother to the child, who sucks it in. It remains a gesture full of charm, and in adult erotic games, sucking plays an important role: once again, it is a symbol of vital force. Dracula has none of the oral aggression of those who eat; on the contrary, he never eats, he only sucks. And in this, he has remained at the gesture of newborn life, the primary movement par excellence: if the child did not know how to suck, it would die."

"Among the possible metamorphoses of Dracula, the most significant, so much so that it has become known to all, is into a bird, a bat. The symbolism of the bird is boundless and is also part of life. The penis is popularly called a bird: precisely because it rises and in that flight gives life, the seed. The bat is a strange creature, we might say perverse: both because it belongs to the mammals and not to the bird species, and because it is nocturnal and at night becomes a bird of sin, of the forbidden. It also has the characteristics of attracting and repelling. During the day, it has no life and remains hanging limply in a cave, while in the dark it is reborn and continuously searches for its prey in that unstoppable flight. Blood therefore recalls the bird-penis, and the image of the ‘baptism of blood’ with Mrs. Mina attached to Dracula's chest, in a position reminiscent of fellatio, is evocative."

"We must now have the courage to say that the count even manages to soften us, to make us feel sorry for him. After all, he is not the monster with superhuman and unstoppable strength, one of those who appear on today's screens of stupidity. Dracula is still a man, he was one while he was alive, in the historical sense of the term; he was a hero, one who saved his people from the Turks, and at that time, the word ‘Turk’ brought to mind evil and extreme violence. A dead character yet full of needs: during the day he must return to a coffin hidden in the ground of the cemetery where he was buried, so much so that he must always carry it with him. He is terrified of good or signs of good: the silver crucifixes and consecrated wafers that Professor Van Helsing uses as his weapons of defense. He is a monster who is afraid and who can be defeated, so much so that this is the conclusion of the story."

"The strength of this novel, however, lies in the great and ever-present theme of the struggle between Good and Evil. A titanic struggle that moves from the everyday scene to the tragedies of the classical period and throughout literature with a capital L. After all, Dracula is Evil, even if he has a charm that sometimes captivates, and the group of characters who eliminate him represent Good, not least because they act in the name of Good."

"Professor Van Helsing is the priest of Good who, given the times, does not wear the robes of a monk or priest, but the garb of science. And so he interprets well the period in which the action takes place: positivism. A priest, therefore, who uses reason, the power of science, but who does not forget the sacred, magical instruments."

"Interviewer:Exhibitionists Andreoli: Of course, this is the mask that hides masochism. And keep in mind that, generally speaking, exhibitionism is a sexuality disorder. Showing off one's organ, but not because it is powerful. To compensate for impotence."

"[Second symptom of Italy's mental illness] Ruthless individualism. And mind you, I mean this adjective. Because a certain amount of individualism is normal, one must have one's own identity to which one attaches esteem. But when it becomes ruthless..."

"[The British] never talk. Instead, we talk even when we listen to music or read the newspaper."

"Interviewer: You can't joke about faith. Andreoli: Not faith in God, let's leave that aside. I'm talking about believing. Thinking that tomorrow, at eight in the morning, there will be a miracle. Then whether it's God, Saint Januarius, or anyone else, it doesn't matter. In short, to be clear, we live in a disaster, in a sewer, but we believe that tomorrow morning at eight there will be a miracle that will change our lives. We're waiting for Godot, who isn't there. But try explaining that to Italians."

"Interviewer: Hidden masochism, ruthless individualism, acting, belief in miracles. We're in a terrible state, Professor Andreoli. Andreoli: That's right. No psychiatrist can save this patient that is Italy. I can't even take away these symptoms, because without them you would feel dead."

"All it takes is a hundred people willing to die as suicide bombers, strapping explosives to themselves, to render ridiculous the system of certainty and the certainty of power on this earth, of the potentates of this world."

"Well, if I have been, and am, a good psychiatrist, if I have helped my crazy patients, it is because of my fragility, because of the fear of a madness that lurks within me, because of the fragility that I feel capable of splitting me in two, of taking away my will to live and making me like a depressed person who only wants to disappear in order to erase the pain that shapes him."

"The Song of Songs speaks of necessary love: being two makes it possible to exist for those who separately would not have made it, would have broken."

"Pain is a quality of being fragile."

"Pain is the primary source of fragility because it breaks you and you feel shattered, unable to put the pieces you see in yourself back together; indeed, you are a pile of fragments, grains of sand that should come together and shape, sculpt a man."

"Pain makes more noise than any other noise."

"The limit of energy becomes the limit of civilization, of a civilization that seems to be one of well-being and that at times appears to be a civilization of waste."

"Marriage is my life with her and our children, but none of us can say that it has been a forty-year trip out of town."

"Marriage is the greatest of human frailties, capable of producing good and incapable of avoiding evil."

"The powerful do not believe they need to be resurrected because they think they are unshakable, like the Eiffel Tower made of iron and not flesh, soulless, cold as a railroad track."

"The powerful do not know how to love; the man of iron is cold, he knows how to envelop and bind in order to subjugate, to enslave."

"The sense of belonging. This is marriage."

"The old man lives on the dead and awaits death."

"Love has nothing free about it, because fear does not allow this utopia to be exercised."

"Man would not survive in the dark without a light bulb to illuminate a page to read or to power a computer on which to type a new world, which also depends on energy."

"The end is not a distant appointment, but a present that perpetuates itself, and so we die continuously and are dead even when we breathe."

"The fragility of fine Murano glass or Bohemian crystal: beautiful, elegant, but it takes very little for it to shatter and turn into useless fragments. Knowing its nature, one must be careful how one uses it, how one preserves it: one must keep it away from places where impetuous actions are performed, because otherwise that fine glass becomes nothing, just a memory."

"Fragility remakes man, while power destroys him, reducing him to fragments that turn to dust."

"Jealousy is the fear of being alone, now that the perfect formula for wholeness has been found, which means completion, security."

"My fragility leads me to love, so love is the answer to a need born of fragility, of the perception that without the other, my being in the world is doomed only to death, to non-existence; and the loneliness of the glass man is the worst of all diseases, of the diseases of living."