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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.

John Kennedy Toole

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John Kennedy Toole
Age: 31 †
Born: 1937
Born: December 17
Died: 1969
Died: March 26
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Professor
Screenwriter
Soldier
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Misery
Position
Since
Universe
Fall
Perverse
Look
Optimism
Looks
Proper
Men
Refuse

More quotes by John Kennedy Toole

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... I tried to end our little duel. I called out pacifying words I entreated I finally surrendered. Still Clyde came, my pirate costume so great a success that it had apparently convinced him that we were back in the golden days of romantic old New Orleans when gentlemen decided matters of hot dog honor at twenty paces
John Kennedy Toole
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with the breakdown of the medieval system, the gods of chaos, lunacy, and bad taste gained ascendancy.
John Kennedy Toole
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I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.
John Kennedy Toole
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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.
John Kennedy Toole
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Mothers got a hard road to travel, believe me.
John Kennedy Toole
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The day before me is fraught with God knows what horrors.
John Kennedy Toole
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you can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces.
John Kennedy Toole
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You could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.
John Kennedy Toole
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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.
John Kennedy Toole
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Canned food is a perversion,' Ignatius said. 'I suspect that it is ultimately very damaging to the soul.
John Kennedy Toole
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The human desire for food and sex is relatively equal. If there are armed rapes, why should there not be armed hot dog thefts?
John Kennedy Toole
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Having once been so high, humanity fell so low. What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale.
John Kennedy Toole
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Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins.
John Kennedy Toole
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Psycho? The woman's senile. We had to stop at about thirty gas stations on the way over here. Finally I got tired of getting out of the car and showing her which was the Men's and which was the Women's, so I let her pick them herself. I worked out a system. The law of averages. I laid money on her and she came out about fifty-fifty.
John Kennedy Toole
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The heart is important at any age, I'm afraid.
John Kennedy Toole
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Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.
John Kennedy Toole
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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.
John Kennedy Toole
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My life is a rather grim one. One day I shall perhaps describe it to you in great detail.
John Kennedy Toole
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Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me?
John Kennedy Toole
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Jail was preferable. There they only limited you physically. In a mental ward they tampered with your soul and worldview and mind.
John Kennedy Toole