“It is not the repetitive, turgid pornography in de Sade’s books that are believed to be dangerous and corrupting by the censors and rulers of the status quo. Rather, it was his ideas, pushing existentialism, nihilism and relativism to that tightrope between sanity and madness. His writings have been perennial since the eighteenth century for this reason. As for his pornography itself, I was bored rigid by it.”
— Ian Brady, quoted in The Untold Story of the Moors Murders by Dr Alan Keightley













