Quotes from John Kennedy Toole

Oh, my God! Ignatius mumbled, looking at the austere little calling card. You can't really be named Dorian Greene. Yes, isn't that wild? Dorian asked languidly. If I told you my real name, you'd never speak to me again. It's so common I could die just thinking of it. I was born on a wheat farm in Nebraska. You can take it from there.

When we have at last overthrown all existing governments, the world will enjoy not war but global orgies conducted with the utmost protocol and the most truly international spirit, for these people do transcend simple national differences. Their minds are on one goal; they are truly united; they think as one.

Once in high school someone had shown him a pornographic photograph, and he had collapsed against a watercooler, injuring his ear. This photograph was far superior.

When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occassional cheese dip. ? John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

However the simple fact that they have been resounding failures in our century does give them a certain spiritual quality. For all we know, they may be-these crushed wretches-the saints of our age.

George había sido lo bastante listo para largarse de la escuela lo antes posible. No quería acabar como aquel tipo.

Y qué anda haciendo ahora esa Myrna? —preguntó con suspicacia la señora Reilly—. ¿Cómo es que escribe tanto? Ella sí que necesitaba un buen baño, qué chica aquella, Dios. —La psique de Myrna sólo puede tratar con el agua en un contexto oral. —¿Qué? —¿Querrías tener la bondad de dejar de gritar como una pescadera y largarte? ¿No tienes una botella de moscatel haciéndose en el horno?

Fortuna wished to make amends. Somehow she had summoned and flushed Myrna minx from a subway tube, from some picket line, from the pungent bed of some Eurasian existentialist, from the hands of some epileptic Negro Buddhist, from the verbose midst of a group therapy session.

couples who swayed and dipped around the Gibraltar of a wallflower, Ignatius.

Patrolman Mancuso's love for the motorcycle was platonically intense.

Miss O'Hara certainly had to cast her pearls before a dismal lot of swine, who looked like the type of vague, drawn old men who molested children at matinees.

The children on that [American Bandstand] program should all be gassed.

It was a neighborhood that had degenerated from Victorian to nothing in particular, a block that had moved into the twentieth century carelessly and uncaringly—and with very limited funds.

Desde entonces no volví a ser tan cariñoso con papá, y él sentía lo mismo hacia mí. Aquello no me gustaba nada. A veces deseaba que pudiéramos ser amigos como antes, pero había algo extraño que ninguno de los dos podíamos cambiar.

De modo que aquí estoy, sentado en este tren. Fuera sigue estando oscuro sin más luz que la de los anuncios de neón que aparecen a veces. El traqueteo sobre los raíles es cada vez más rápido, y puedo ver que ahora los árboles cruzan velozmente la luna. Los años que me quedaban antes de ir a la escuela pasaron con tanta rapidez como ahora pasan esos árboles ante la luna.

To you character is a psychosis. Integrity is a complex.

Me pareció que era una bonita plegaria, así que miré a través de la ventana y empecé a rezar, pero mi mirada tropezó con la Biblia de neón, allá abajo, y no pude continuar. Entonces vi que las estrellas del cielo resplandecían con la hermosa plegaria y empecé de nuevo, recé sin pensar siquiera y ofrecí la oración a las estrellas y al cielo nocturno.

the tight trousers that bulged offensively in the crotch in violation of all rules of theology and geometry.

The outfit was acceptable by any theological and geometrical standards, however abstruse, and suggested a rich inner life.

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.

Su obligación es servir en silencio lo que le pidan. Si quisiéramos incluirle a usted en nuestra conversación, se lo habríamos indicado. Sepa que estamos discutiendo cuestiones personales de no poca importancia.

There is a New Orleans city accent … associated with downtown New Orleans, particularly with the German and Irish Third Ward, that is hard to distinguish from the accent of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Astoria, Long Island, where the Al Smith inflection, extinct in Manhattan, has taken refuge. The reason, as you might expect, is that the same stocks that brought the accent to Manhattan imposed it on New Orleans.

Already he was polishing a few carefully worded accusations designed to reduce his mother to repentance or, at least, confusion. He often had to keep her in her place.

Attacked by a bird," Mrs. Reilly wept. "That hadda happen to you, Ignatius. Nobody never gets attacked by a bird.