Sutcliff Quotes

“The issue which faced the jury was this: was Sutcliffe a clever criminal, aware of what he was doing and determined to avoid capture? ... In a sense, it was the wrong question. The battle that was fought out in court - the mad/bad dichotomy - both substitutes for and obscures the real dilemma raised by the Yorkshire Ripper case: is Sutcliffe a one-off, su generis as I have heard one psychiatrist describe him, someone who stands outside our culture and has no relation to it? Those who assert that Sutcliffe is mad are in essence saying yes to this question; madness is a closed category, one over which we have no control and for which we bear no responsibility. The deranged stand apart from us; we cannot be blamed for their insanity. Thus the urge to characterize Sutcliffe as mad has powerful emotional origins; it has as much to do with how we see ourselves and the society in which we live... It is a distancing mechanism, a way of establishing a comforting gulf between ourselves and a particularly unacceptable criminal.”

“That is our Shield Ring, our last stronghold; not the barrier fells and the totter-moss between, but something in the hearts of men.”

“But most of all I was inspired by the stirring examples of all the other runners. In some pictures they would seem like tiny dots in a mosaic, but each had a separate narrative starting a few months or a lifetime earlier and finishing that day in the New York City Marathon, the race with 37,000 stories.”

“The truth is that our enjoyments and our evaluations, like our trades, are learned; intensive knowledge, as well as extensive, is acquired. We learn how to value possessions as well as how to make them; our passions, our disgusts, and our ambitions are learned. Just as we have evolved ways of transmuting physical elements from one to another, so we have evolved ways of transmuting experience into meaning.”

“University of Life. Year One - Advance Adventure Playgrounds. Part One Exam - go to the Third World and survive. No revision, interest, intellect or sensitivity required.”

“Ever see moors murderer Ian Brady, study his photos, study Black, study Cannon, study Sutcliffe - study them all! Who says evil is not recognisable?”

“It is lonely never to have been loved, only devoured.”

“And what will they do to you when you have told them this story?' Esca said very simply, 'They will kill me.' 'I am sorry, but I do not think much of that plan.' Marcus said.”

“See now, for a good blade, one that will not betray the man in battle, rods of hard and soft iron must be heated and braided together. Then is the blade folded over and hammered flat again, and maybe yet again, many times for the finest blades... So the hard and soft iron are mingled without blending, before the blade is hammered up to its finished form and tempered, and ground to an edge that shall draw blood from the wind. So comes the pattern, like oil and water that mingle but do not mix. Yet it is the strength of the blade, for without the hard iron the blade would bend in battle, and without the soft iron it would break.”

“He loved me and didn't want me hurt. What was worse, he didn't even understand that I had the right to be hurt.”