Quotes from John Kennedy Toole

Long years of practice and usage had made her rump an unusually versatile and dexterous thing.

Some musk which my system generates must be especially appealing to the authorities of the government. Who else would be accosted by a policeman while innocently awaiting his mother before a department store? Who else would be spied upon and reported for picking a helpless stray of a kitten from a gutter?

Who wants peace? Santa asked. Ignatius got a sign up in front the house about peace. I mighta known, Santa said angrily. First that boy wants a king, now he wants peace. I'm telling you, Irene. For your own good. That boy's gotta be put away.

He's sitting in his room right now writing some foolishness. I says, `What's that you writing now, boy?' And he say, `I'm writing about being a weenie vendor.' Ain't that terrible? Who want to read a story like that? You know how much he brought home from that weenie place today? Four dollars. How I'm gonna pay off that man?

I dust a bit, Ignatius told the policeman. In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.

Stop knocking that broom against the bar," she screamed. "Goddammit to hell, you making me nervous." "You want quiet sweeping, you get you a old lady. I sweep yawng.

She offered Patrolman Mancuso a torn and oily cake box that looked as if it had been subjected to unusual abuse during someone's attempt to take all of the doughnuts at once. At the bottom of the box Patrolman Mancuso found two withered pieces of doughnut out of which, judging by their moist edges, the jelly had been sucked.

For every nice thing I ever done for you, I just get kicked around. I want to be treated nice by somebody before I die. You learnt everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being

Ignatius, a very bad crack-up is on the way. You must do something. Even volunteer work at a hospital would snap you out of your apathy, and it would probably be non-taxing on your valve and other things. Get out of that womb-house for at least an hour a day. Take a walk, Ignatius. Look at the trees and birds. Realize that life is surging all around you. The valve closes because it thinks it is living in a dead organism. Open your heart, Ignatius, and you will open your valve.

I simply await the day that they drag me to some air-conditioned dungeon and leave me there beneath the fluorescent lights and soundproofed ceiling to pay the price for scorning all that they hold dear within their little latex hearts.

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 teenage beach musical. I almost collapsed during the singing sequence on surfboard. In addition, I suffered through two nightmares last night, one involving a Scenicruiser bus. The other involved a girl of my acquaintance. It was rather brutal and obscene. If I described it to you, you would no doubt become frightened.

So that's who that obvious appendage of officialdom was. He looked like an arm of the bureaucracy. You can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces.

Miss Trixie was never perfectly vertical; she and the floor always met at an angle of less than ninety degrees.

Get out of that womb-house for at least an hour a day. Take a walk, Ignatius. Look at the trees and birds. Realize that life is surging all around you. The valve closes because it thinks it is living in a dead organism. Open your heart and you will open your valve.

Everyone I know has a fine big sedan, Mrs. Levy said as she got into the little car. Not you. No. You have to own a kid's car that costs more than a Cadillac and blows my hair all around.

The scheme is too breathtaking for the literal, liberal minx mind mired in a claustrophobic clutch of clichés.

I also told the students that, for the sake of humanity's future, I hoped that they were all sterile.

Almost everyone else has had an opportunity to run the world. I cannot see why these people should not be given their chance.

For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books." "You're fantastic." "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.

Degeneracy, rather than signaling the downfall of a society, as it once did, will now signal peace for a troubled world. We must have new solutions to new problems.

people who eschew the insipid philosophy of the middle class, people who are willing to assume controversial positions, to follow their cause, however unpopular it may be, however it may threaten the smugness of the middle class.

Why you always knocking Santa, Ignatius? She appears to have been knocked a bit in her life already. Up rather than down. If she ever nears me, however, the direction will be reversed.

the visitors to that questionable museum would defecate into their garish tourist outfits

I really have had little to do with them, for I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.