My uncle told me don't go to no Yankee school, boy. So I burned the school down. I'm a hobo. A derelict. A bum. I'm an open boxcar and a bottle of wine...and a straight-razor if you get too close! Maybe I should have killed four or five hundred people...then I would have felt better. Then I would have felt I really offered society something. (Talking to an interviewer) "If I wanted to kill somebody...I'd pick (up) this book and beat you to death with it! And I wouldn't feel a thing! It'd be like walking to the drug store." [On the Tate-LaBianca murders]: They maybe [sic] influenced, or they might have thought they were my instructions, but I wasn't...I wasn't, uh...directing traffic. (Interview with Diane Sawyer, 1994) Look down at me and you'll see a fool. Look up at me and you'll see your god. Look straight at me and you'll see yourself. Believe me, if I started killing people...there'd be none of you left. "You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Now everybody's crazy."