How we cite our quotes: (Preface if applicable, Paragraph)
Quote #1
Then, when I had given up and gone back to the alley, a few colored letters were dropped here and there, reflected on the asphalt in front of me. I read: FOR MADMEN ONLY! (10)
Now that's our kind of club! This first mysterious appearance of the phrase points to the trail of breadcrumbs Pablo and Hermine are leaving for Harry, leading him to the Magic Theater.
Quote #2
Next, my family life fell in ruins over night, when my wife, whose mind was disordered, drove me from house and home. (70)
Most of the time we think of Harry as our main mad man in the novel, but here he's showing us that it is something that has plagued his social life, too. It almost gives us the idea that madness is contagious.
Quote #3
Madman, then, I must certainly be and far from the mold of "everybody" if those voices reached me and that world spoke to me. (78)
Euclid would be proud. If the entertainment is only for madmen, and Harry is invited to the entertainment, then he must be a madman. Q.E.D. But actually, Harry has always thought of himself as a little bit crazy; isn't that what the whole Steppenwolf idea is all about? It's a way of him explaining his irrational side to himself.
Quote #4
"I sincerely beg your wife's pardon and your own. Tell her, please, that I am a schizomaniac." (93)
Now there's a message you don't get passed to you every day. "Tell your wife I'm sorry and that I'm a nutcase." We can see the way that Harry uses his madness as an excuse for his behavior.
Quote #5
"Oh, don't make a song of your sufferings. You are no madman, Professor. You're not half mad enough to please me." (129)
Oh, burn. Harry thinks that he's crazy enough to get into the Magic Theater and get with Hermine, but he has a lot to learn. Like how to laugh like a maniac, for example.
Quote #6
Was I to believe that this happy child with her hearty appetite and the air of a gourmet was at the same time a victim of hysterical visions who wished to die? (256)
Remember how Harry said his wife's mind was disordered? It seems he's surrounded by disorderly women, because here, too, Hermine is asking him to kill her, which he attributes to madness.
Quote #7
TONIGHT AT THE MAGIC THEATER
FOR MADMEN ONLY
PRICE OF ADMITTANCE YOUR MIND. (459)
Well, that's convenient. If Harry isn't mad enough to get into the theater he will be by the time he pays the admission fee. But actually, the fee isn't about literally losing your mind. The admission is opening up your mind so that the Theater can exist within it.
Quote #8
"Brother Harry, I invite you to a little entertainment. For madmen only, and one price only—your mind. Are you ready?" (483)
Pablo is sort of a puppet master in this scene, asking Harry to give him his mind in order to experience the Magic Theater. Why do you think it's necessary for him to lose his mind?
Quote #9
"Just as madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizomania the beginning of all art and all fantasy." (597)
How Romantic! No, not Valentine's romantic, but the Romantic literary movement, which equates insanity with creativity. The chess player seems to be telling Harry that his insanity isn't something to fight with, but actually something that gives him a different, unique perspective on the world.
Quote #10
Again I looked into the mirror. I had been mad. I must have been mad. There was no wolf in the mirror, lolling his tongue in his maw. It was I, Harry. (619)
Oh, wait, so Harry was mad all along? Apparently the Steppenwolf myth was Harry's own brand of crazy, and when he loses his mind in the Magic Theater he's actually becoming lucid.