You’re not crazy; I’m crazy.
“Pretending to be crazy works really well until you run into someone pretending to be sane.”
In searching for the quote, I found this one in the comments,
“When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane”
—Herman Hesse
It’s nice but it doesn’t actually mean the same thing.
Another comment claimed it was Mitch Hedberg but I can’t corroborate that at all. He’s one of the most quotable comics of all time and I didn’t find that quote anywhere else. It sounds good, though.
“Mitch Hedberg who said if someone says, “Don’t mess with me, I’m crazy!”, that’s not actually intimidating. If someone says, “Don’t mess with me, I’m a refrigerator!”, you stay away from that guy.”
As usual, mentioning Mitch Hedberg in the Reddit comments triggered an avalanche of quotations and sentiments expressed in his voice. They’re like zen koans.
For example,
Things I used to do
“I used to love Mitch Hedberg quotes. I still do, but I used to, too.”“I used to love Mitch Hedberg. I still do, but I used to, too. ❤”
These two are homages to Hedberg’s now-ominous-sounding (Wikipedia) joke,
“I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.”
Girlfriends
“I don’t have a girlfriend but I know a girl who would be really mad if she heard me say that.”
Baked potatoes
“I like baked potatoes. I don’t have a microwave oven, and it takes forever to bake a potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I’ll just throw one in there, even if I don’t want one, because by the time it’s done, who knows?”
Slip covers
“This one commercial said “Forget everything you know about slip covers,” so I did. And it was a load off my mind. Then the commercial tried to sell slip covers, but I didn’t know what the fuck they were.”
Laziness
“I write jokes for a living, man. See I sit in my hotel at night, I think of something that’s funny and then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or, if the pen’s too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain’t funny.”
Bananas
“My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana, and I said “No… but I want a regular banana later, so yeah.””
Escalators
“I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs.”
That’s graceful degradation (Wikipedia) for you.