Quotes from Daniel Keyes

I was on a down escalator now. If I stood still I'd go all the way to the bottom, but if I started to run up maybe I could at least stay in the same place. The important thing was to keep moving upward no matter what happened.

And other times there would be tenderness and holding-close liek a warm bath, and hands stroking my hair and brow, and the words carved about the cathedral of my childhood: 'He's like all the other children. He's a good boy.

the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes

Tell you what I don't like about a place so goddamned orderly like this. As an artist... it's the lines that get me. All the straight lines in the walls, on the floors, in the corners that turn into boxes—like coffins. The only way I can get rid of the boxes is to take a few drinks. Then all the lines get wavy and wiggly, and I feel a lot better about the whole world. When things are all straight and lined up this way I get morbid.

Life and work are the most wonderful things a man can have. I am in love with what I am doing, because the answer to this problem is right here in my mind, and soon—very soon—it will burst into consciousness.

I want you to understand this mite fale and then nothing woud happen at all. Or it mite even sucseed temperary and leeve you werse off then you are now.

I wanted to be in love with her. I wanted to overcome my emotional and sexual fears, to marry, have children, settle down.

P.S. please tel prof Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends. Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go. P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

Sou um universo em expansão, nadando para cima em um oceano silencioso.

It is impossible to tell what proportion is memory and what exists here and now--so that a strange compound is formed of memory and reality; past and present; response to stimuli stored in my brain centers, an response to stimuli in this room. It's as if all the things I've learned have fused into a crystal universe spinning before me so that I can see all the facets of it reflected in gorgeous bursts of light...

Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed.

Se você é intelijente você podi ter muitos amigos pra conversar e você nunca fica solitário sosinho o tempo todo.

Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night--in the moments before I pass off into sleep--ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem.

It's not love-but she's important to me. I find myself listening for her footsteps down the hallway whenever she's been out.

Ch?ng có ai là ng??i thá»±c sá»± b?t ??u má»™t cái má»›i c? [...]. Ai cÅ©ng ??ng lên t? th?t b?i c?a ng??i khác.

It's amazing the way things, apparently disconnected, hang together.

Ama onu suçlam?yorum, çünkü benim kim olduÄŸumu anlama çabalar?m?n ve varl???m?n tüm anlam?n?n, sadece geçmiÅŸimle deÄŸil, geleceÄŸimle ilgili olas?l?klar? ve sadece nereden geldiÄŸimi deÄŸil, nereye gittiÄŸimi de bilmekten geçtiÄŸini bir türlü anlam?yor.

Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness?

As Burt would put it, mocking the euphemisms of educational jargon, I'm exceptional—a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of gifted and deprived (which used to mean bright and retarded) and as soon as exceptional begins to mean anything to anyone they'll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody. Exceptional refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I've been exceptional.

fear of being revealed as a man walking on stilts among giants is understandable. Failure at this point would destroy him.

I've got to work out the rule. If I can find that out, and if it adds even one jot of information to whatever else has been discovered about mental retardation and the possibility of helping others like myself, I will be satisfied. Whatever happens to me, I will have lived a thousand normal lives by what I might add to others not yet born.

Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont, see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it, But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill, use them, too,,,

It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy.

Are you content? If so, you can afford to ignore the condemnation of the crowd.