Quotes from John Kennedy Toole

I doubt whether any hack, under pressure, could pen such atrocious melodrama

How come God has to make it so tough for you?" "We must not question His ways," Ignatius said. "Maybe not, but I still don't get it." "The writings of Boethius may give you some insight." "I read Father Keller and Billy Graham in the paper every single day." "Oh, my God!" Ignatius spluttered. "No wonder you are so lost.

Look at that. She think I got siphlus and TB and a hard-on and I gonna cut her up with a razor and lif her purse. Ooo-wee.

New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.

She ran into the bathroom and powdered her face and the front of her dress, drew a surrealistic version of a mouth beneath her nose, and dashed into her bedroom to find a coat.

Why did you step out of my life, you minx? Your new hair-do is fascinating and cosmopolitan." He snatched at her pigtail and pressed it to his wet moustache, kissing it vigorously. "The scent of soot and carbon in your hair excites me with suggestions of glamorous Gotham. We must leave immediately. I must go flower in Manhattan.

She went up to his bedroom door and listened to the wildly twanging bed springs as they reached a crescendo as they built toward a finale worthy of Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King

Mother, when was this coffee dripped? Ignatius demanded, flapping into the kitchen again. Just about a hour ago. Why? It certainly tastes brackish.

Oh, New Orleans is such freedom.

Your total ignorance of that which you profess to teach merits the death penalty.

My excellence confused them

Ignatius, all at once you're your horrible old self. All at once I think I'm making a very big mistake.

In the five years that he had dedicated to this work, he had produced an average of only six paragraphs monthly. He could not even remember what he had written in some of the tablets, and he realized that several were filled principally with doodling. However, Ignatius thought calmly, Rome was not built in a day.

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.

Suddenly Mrs. Reilly remembered the horrible night that she and Mr. Reilly had gone to Prytania to see Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in 'Red Dust.' In the heat and confusion that had followed their return home, nice Mr. Reilly had tried one of his indirect approaches, and Ignatius was conceived. Poor Mr. Reilly. He had never gone to another movie as long as he lived.

Oh, shut up your little pussymouth, you mongoloid.

Myrna was not astigmatic; the lenses were clear glass; she wore the glasses to prove her dedication and intensity of purpose.

What is your opinion of a society that considers Turkey in the Straw to be one of the pillars, as it were, of its culture?

a block that had moved into the twentieth century carelessly and uncaringly—and with very limited funds.

Several of the [crowd's] outfits, Ignatius noticed, were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. 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.

Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss. By the time we had left the swamps and reached those rolling hills near Baton Rouge, I was getting afraid that some rural rednecks might toss bombs at the bus. They love to attack vehicles, which are a symbol of progress, I guess.

What is it, Gus? A problem? Are you having a problem? That's one of your problems. You never tell me your problems.

Talc: You have been found guilty of misleading and perverting the young. I decree that you be hung by your underdeveloped testicles until dead. ZORRO

He resented my worldview rather actively.