Quotes from John Kennedy Toole

When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occassional cheese dip.

Oh, Fortuna, blind, heedless goddess, I am strapped to your wheel,' Ignatius belched, 'Do not crush me beneath your spokes. Raise me on high, divinity.

Like a bitch in heat, I seem to attract a coterie of policemen and sanitation officials.

So we see that even when Fortuna spins us downward, the wheel sometimes halts for a moment and we find ourselves in a good, small cycle within the larger bad cycle. The universe, of course, is based upon the principle of the circle within the circle. At the moment, I am in an inner circle. Of course, smaller circles within this circle are also possible.

with the breakdown of the medieval system, the gods of chaos, lunacy, and bad taste gained ascendancy.

The only excursion of my life outside of New Orleans took me through the vortex to the whirlpool of despair: Baton Rouge. . . . New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.

Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked.

employers sense in me a denial of their values...they fear me. i suspect that they can see that i am forced to function in a century which i loathe.

I refuse to "look up." Optimism nauseates me. It is perverse. Since man's fall, his proper position in the universe has been one of misery.

Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me?

My mother is currently associating with some undesirables who are attempting to transform her into an athlete of sorts, deprave specimens of mankind who regularly bowl their way to oblivion.

Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one's soul.

This liberal doxy must be impaled on the member of a particularly large stallion!

Ignatius, what's all this trash on the floor? That is my worldview that you see. It still must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step.

I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he's found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.

I bet you cook good, huh? Darlene asked. Mother doesn't cook, Ignatius said dogmatically. She burns.

Mother went out again tonight, looking like a courtesan.

Perhaps the experience can give my writing a new dimension. Being actively engaged in the system which I criticize will be an interesting irony in itself.

No wonder you've turned on me so savagely. I suspect that you are using me as a scapegoat for your own feelings of guilt.

I should perhaps warn you that I am about to faint from anxiety and general depression, though. The film I saw last night was especially grueling, a teen-age beach musical. I almost collapsed during the singing sequence on surfboard.

I should have known that every time I open the door of my room I am literally opening a Pandora's Box.

Mrs. Reilly called in that accent that occurs south of New Jersey only in New Orleans, that Hoboken near the Gulf of Mexico.

Go dangle your withered parts over the toilet!' Ignatius screamed savagely.

Having once been so high, humanity fell so low. What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale.