Word - Cutting off your nose ...

“[I]t troubles me greatly that you had to experience any hardships because of my deeds. It has been six years of pain and anguish for Dan and I can’t begin to explain how awful I feel for having put him in that position. Maybe with time and talk, he can begin to heal the wounds caused by this calamity.” ?
—From a 2005 Mother’s Day card Eric Rudolph sent his mom, published in USA Today. Dan is his older brother.?


b>”Daniel Rudolph’s decision to maim himself is regrettable and totally unexpected.”?
—FBI Special Agent Charlie Sheppard, in USA Today. Rudolph cut off his hand with a buzzsaw in 1998, apparently to protest the way the FBI and media treated his family. The hand was reattached.?


b>”If I had the faith to do it, I’d be a notable madman; now I am an insignificant one, but you see I am not sufficiently ambitious for that fame to set a match to the powder.” ?
—Vincent van Gogh, from an Aug. 15, 1888, letter to his brother Theo. Van Gogh later cut off the lower half of his left ear, took it to a brothel and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel.