HOWARD: (serene, sits behind his desk) What’s happening to me, Max, isn’t mensurate in psychiatric terms. This is not a psychotic episode. It is a cleansing moment of clarity. (stands, an imbued man) I am imbued, Max. I am imbued with some special spirit. It’s not a religious feeling at all. It is a shocking eruption of great electrical energy: I feel vivid and flashing as if suddenly I had been plugged into some great cosmic electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things, to flowers, birds, to all the animals of the world and even to some great unseen living force, what I think the Hindus call prana. It is not a breakdown. I have never felt so orderly in my life! It is a shattering and beautiful sensation! It is the exalted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and of such loveliness! I feel on the verge of some great ultimate truth. You will not take me off the air for now or for any other spaceless time!
‘Network’ (Howard): “This is not a psychotic episode”
NETWORK by Paddy Chayefsky
From: Movie
Type: Dramatic
Character: Howard Beale, the "magisterial, dignified" anchorman of UBS. He's also going mad.
Gender: Male
Age Range: 50's | 60's
Summary: Howard tries to convince Max that he's doing fine and never felt better.
More: Read the Screenplay | Watch the Film