"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results."
— Rita Mae Brown

January 1, 1970

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Novelists from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesScreenwriters from the United StatesDetective fiction authors20th-century poets from the United States
Original Language: English

Sources

Brown did include this quote in her book Sudden Death (Bantam Books, New York, 1983), p. 68, but it appears she was just paraphrasing a quote that had already been written elsewhere. The earliest known appearance of a similar quote is the "approval version" of the Narcotics Anonymous "Basic Text" released in November 1981, which included the quote "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." A PDF scan of the 1981 approval version can be found here, with the quote a