| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 42619 |
| QUOTATION: | If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault. |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Peggy Noonan (b. 1950), U.S. author, presidential speechwriter. What I Saw at the Revolution, ch. 2 (1990).
On the insanity verdict handed down to John Hinckley, would- be assassin of President Reagan in 1981, as reported by Noonan and Dan Rather. “The insane are with us, it is true,” continued their report. “But so are the calculating. And what they learn from this verdict is that you can do anything; you can wait like a jackal and shoot a man in the head and leave him for dead and buy your way out with clever lawyers and expensive pyschiatrists.” |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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