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There is no question about it now. I'm in love.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: There is no question about
Tell you what I don't like about a place so goddamned orderly like this. As an artist ... it's the lines that get me. All the straight lines in the walls, on the floors, in the corners that turn into boxes - like coffins. The only way I can get rid of the boxes is to take a few drinks. Then all the lines get wavy and wiggly, and I feel a lot better about the whole world. When things are all straight and lined up this way I get morbid.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Tell you what I don't
What an incredible thing! How much less they had than other human beings. Mentally retarded, deaf, mute - and still eagerly sanding benches.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: What an incredible thing! How
Me, a nothingness zombie in a nothingness box in a nothingness hell.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Me, a nothingness zombie in
What's right? Ironic that all my intelligence doesn't help me solve a problem like this.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: What's right? Ironic that all
He wished me luk. I hope I have luk. I got my rabits foot and my luky penny and my horshoe. Dr Strauss said dont be so superstishus Charlie. This is sience. I dont know what sience is but they all keep saying it so maybe its something that helps you have good luk.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: He wished me luk. I
I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I am afraid. Not of
I am in love with what I am doing, because the answer to this problem is right here in my mind, and soon - very soon - it will burst into consciousness.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I am in love with
They would always find excuses to slip away, afraid to reveal the narrowness of their knowledge.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: They would always find excuses
It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy - about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: It's exciting to hear them
I don't pretend to understand the mystery of love, but this time it was more than sex, more than using a woman's body. It was being lifted off the earth, outside fear and torment, being part of something greater than myself. I was lifted out of the dark cell of my own mind, to become part of someone else -- just as I had experienced it that day on the couch in therapy. It was the first step outward to the universe -- beyond the universe -- because in it and with it we merged to recreate and perpetuate the human spirit. Expanding and bursting outward, and contracting and forming inward, it was the rhythm of being -- of breathing, of heartbeat, of day and night -- and the rhythm of our bodies set off an echo in my mind. It was the way it had been back there in that strange vision. The gray murk lifted from my mind, and through it the light pierced into my brain (how strange that light should blind!), and my body was absorbed back into a great sea of space, washed under in a strange baptism. My body shuddered with giving, and her body shuddered its acceptance.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I don't pretend to understand
But the deeper I get tangled up in this mass of dreams and memories the more I realize that emotional problems can't be solved as intellectual problems are.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: But the deeper I get
The more intelligent you become the more problems you'll have, Charlie.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The more intelligent you become
I have often reread my early progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naivete, the mind of low intelli­gence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at the dazzling light outside. In my dreams and memories I've seen Charlie smiling happily and uncertainly at what people around him were saying. Even in my dullness I knew I was inferior. Other people had something I lacked - something denied me. In my mental blindness, I had be­lieved it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would have intelligence too.

Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I have often reread my
I can't help but admire the structural linguists who have carved out for
themselves a linguistic discipline based on the deterioration of written
communication. Another case of men devoting their lives to studying more and more about less and less-filling volumes and libraries with the subtle linguistic analysis of the grunt.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I can't help but admire
I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I just want to be
Language is sometimes a barrier instead of a pathway.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Language is sometimes a barrier
Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont, see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it, But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill, use them, too,,,, April
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Today, I learned, the comma,
But I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligent and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn ... Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love ... Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: But I've learned that intelligence
It doesn't mean,' she shrugged. 'It just is
Daniel Keyes Quotes: It doesn't mean,' she shrugged.
The problem, dear professor, is that you wanted someone who could be made intelligent but still be kept in a cage and displayed when necessary to reap the honors you seek. The hitch is that I'm a person.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The problem, dear professor, is
I'm like a man who's been half-asleep all his life, trying to find out what he was like before he woke up.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I'm like a man who's
Don't misunderstand me," I said. "Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain. "When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Now I have no one. Oh, I know lots of people. Lots and lots of people. But I don't have any real friends. Not like I used to have in the bakery. Not a friend in the world who means anything to me, and no one I mean anything to.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Don't misunderstand me,
Solitude gives me a chance to read and think, and now that the memories are coming through again - to rediscover my past, to find out who and what I really am. If anything should go wrong, I'll have at least that.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Solitude gives me a chance
Dr Strauss said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motor-vation. I never ever knew I had that. I felt proud when he said that not every body with an eye-q of 68 had that thing. I don't know what it is or where I got it but he said Algernon had it too. Algernons motor-vation is the cheese they put in his box. But it cant be that because I didnt eat any cheese last week.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Dr Strauss said I had
When he admitted this to me, I found myself almost annoyed. It was as if he'd hidden this part of himself in order to deceive me, pretending
as do many people I've discovered
to be what he is not. No one I've ever known is what he appears to be on the surface.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: When he admitted this to
I don't know what's worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you've always wanted to be, and feel alone.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I don't know what's worse:
Somehow I've become separated emotionally from everyone and everything. And what I was really searching for out there in the dark streets - the last damned place I could ever find it - was a way to make myself a part of people again emotionally, while still retaining my freedom intellectually. I've got to grow up. For me it means everything. . . .
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Somehow I've become separated emotionally
All the barriers were gone. I had unwound the string she had given me, and found my way out of the labyrinth to where she was waiting. I loved her with more than my body.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: All the barriers were gone.
Before, they had laughed at me, despising me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hated me for my knowledge and understanding. Why? What in God's name did they want of me?
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Before, they had laughed at
There are a lot of people who will give money or materials, but very few who will give time and affection.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: There are a lot of
I pray God it is the answer I want, but if not I will accept any answer at all and try to be grateful for what I had.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I pray God it is
Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Intelligence is one of the
So this is how a person can come to despise himself-knowing he's doing the wrong thing and not being able to stop.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: So this is how a
Is life worth living in the jaws of society's trash can for misfit minds? What can I possibly achieve or contribute to mankind in this steel and concrete box with a damn loud laughing wall that moves? Just give up?
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Is life worth living in
Thank God for books and music and things I can think about.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Thank God for books and
I want to stop time, freeze myself at this level and never let go of her.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I want to stop time,
The current of my mind carried me swiftly into the open sea.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The current of my mind
What has happened to me? Why am I so alone in the world?
Daniel Keyes Quotes: What has happened to me?
Time assumes another dimension now - work and absorption in the search for an answer.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Time assumes another dimension now
I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damn thing. It only leads to violence and pain.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I've learned that intelligence alone
had reached a new level, and anger and suspicion were my first reactions to the world around me. Burt's
Daniel Keyes Quotes: had reached a new level,
Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts the most.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Only a short time ago,
No, you don't understand because it isn't happening to you, and no one can understand but me. I don't blame you. You've got your job to do, and your Ph.D. to get, and-oh, yes don't tell me, I know you're in this largely out of love of humanity, but you've got your life to live and we don't happen to belong on the same level. I passed your floor on the way up, nad now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again. So let's just say good-bye here and now.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: No, you don't understand because
She sighed as she looked around. Tell you what I don't like about a place so goddamned orderly like this. As an artist . . . it's the lines that get me. All the straight lines in the walls, on the floors, in the corners that turn into boxes - like coffins. The only way I can get rid of the boxes is to take a few drinks. Then all the lines get wavy and wiggly, and I feel a lot better about the whole world. When things are all straight and lined up this way I get morbid. Ugh! If I lived here I would have to stay drunk all the time.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: She sighed as she looked
Ordinary people, she said, can see only a little bit. They can't change much or go any higher than they are, but you're a genius. You'll keep going up and up, and see more and more. And each step will reveal worlds you never even knew existed.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Ordinary people, she said, can
Its easy to make frends if you let pepul laff at you.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Its easy to make frends
It's not love-but she's important to me. I find myself listening for her
footsteps down the hallway whenever she's been out.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: It's not love-but she's important
Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything - all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it. Is there time?
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Strange about learning; the farther
I may soon be coming to Warren, tos pend the rest of my life with the others ... waiting.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I may soon be coming
The feeling of cold grayness was everywhere around me-a sense of resignation. There had been no talk of rehabilitation, of cure, of someday sending these people out into the world again. No one had spoken of hope. The feeling was of living death-or worse, of never having been fully alive and knowing. Souls withered from the beginning, and doomed to stare into the time and space of every day.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The feeling of cold grayness
April 26 - I know I shouldn't hang around the college when I'm through at the lab, but seeing the young men and women going back and forth carrying books and hearing them talk about all the things they're learning in their classes excites me. I wish I could sit and talk with them over coffee in the Campus Bowl Luncheonette when they get together to argue about books and politics and ideas. It's exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy - about Shakespeare and Milton; Newton and Einstein and Freud; about Plato and Hegel and Kant, and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind. Sometimes I listen in on the conversations at the tables around me, and pretend I'm a college student, even though I'm a lot older than they are. I carry books around, and I've started to smoke a pipe. It's silly, but since I belong at the lab I feel as if I'm a part of the university. I hate to go home to that lonely room.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: April 26 - I know
I was on a down escalator now. If I stood still I'd go all the way to the bottom, but if I started to run up maybe I could at least stay in the same place. The important thing was to keep moving upward no matter what happened.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I was on a down
So even if I'm getting intelligent and learning a lot of new things, he thinks I'm still a boy about women. It's confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: So even if I'm getting
My studies are going well. The university library is my second home now. They've had to get me a private room because it takes me only a second to absorb the printed page, and curious students invariably gather around me as I flip through my books.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: My studies are going well.
Results are often negative. We learn what something is not - and that is as important as a positive discovery to the man who is going to pick up from there. At least he knows what not to do.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Results are often negative. We
there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn." I
Daniel Keyes Quotes: there's one thing you've all
Each day I learn more and more about myself, and the memories that began to ripples now wash over in high breaking waves ...
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Each day I learn more
I am just as far away from Alice with an I.Q. of 185 as I was when I had an I.Q. of 70. And this time we both know it.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I am just as far
the words carved above the cathedral of my childhood
Daniel Keyes Quotes: the words carved above the
And other times there would be tenderness and holding-close liek a warm bath, and hands stroking my hair and brow, and the words carved about the cathedral of my childhood: 'He's like all the other children. He's a good boy.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: And other times there would
Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.
Charlie Gordan
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Even a feeble-minded man wants
She tried to soothe me, to tell me it didn't matter, that there was no reason to blame myself. But ashamed, and no longer able to control my anguish, I began to sob. There in her arms I cried myself to sleep, and I dreamed of the courtier and the pink-cheeked maiden. But in my dream it was the maiden who held the sword.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: She tried to soothe me,
My anger was an exciting feeling, and I didn't give it up easily. I was ready to fight.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: My anger was an exciting
People resent being shown that they don't approach the complexities of the problem - they don't know what exists beyond the surface ripples.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: People resent being shown that
Goodby Miss Kinnian and dr Strauss and evrybody ...

P.S. please tel prof Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he woud have more frends. Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go.

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard

Flowers For Algernon
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Goodby Miss Kinnian and dr
Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Its easy to have frends
I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I put Algernon's body in
Remembering how my mother looked before she gave birth to my sister is frightening. But even more frightening is the feeling that I wanted them to catch me and beat me. Why did I want to be punished? Shadows out of the past clutch at my legs and drag me down. I open my mouth to scream, but I am voiceless. My hands are trembling, I feel cold, and there is a distant humming in my ears.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Remembering how my mother looked
This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy. And now that I've found it, how can I give it up? Life and work are the most wonderful things a man can have.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: This is beauty, love, and
Shut up!Leave him alone! He cant understand. He cant help what he is ... but for God's sake, have some respect! He's a human being!
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Shut up!Leave him alone! He
. . . the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes . . .' October
Daniel Keyes Quotes: . . . the men
For one moment I had a cold feeling he was watching. Over the arm of the couch, I caught a glimpse of his face staring back at me through the dark beyond the window - where just a few minutes earlier I had been crouching. A switch of perception, and I was out on the fire escape again, watching a man and a woman inside, making love on the couch. ... I thought to myself, go ahead, you poor bastard - watch. I don't give a damn anymore.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: For one moment I had
I passed your floor on the way up, and now I'm passing it on the way down, and I don't think I'll be taking this elevator again.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I passed your floor on
Her voice, hoarse, was an unmistakable echo down the corridors of memory.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Her voice, hoarse, was an
Whatever happens to me, I will have lived a thousand normal lives by what I might add to others not yet born.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Whatever happens to me, I
Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life like you said to be smart because I learned a lot of things that I never knew were in this world, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Don't feel sorry for me.
I dint know they had majers in collidge. I thot it was onley in the army. Anyway
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I dint know they had
Punctuation, is? fun!
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Punctuation, is? fun!
It was as if I had been looking at the whole thing clearly on the blackboard of my mind, but when I turned to read it, part of it had been erased and the rest didn't make sense.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: It was as if I
The depressing thing is that so many of the ideas on which our psychologists base their beliefs about human intelligence, memory, and learning are all wishful thinking.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The depressing thing is that
The world around me and my past seem far away and distorted, as if time and space were taffy being stretched and looped and twisted out of shape.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The world around me and
I hated her as I had never hated anyone before - with her easy answers and maternal fussing. I wanted to slap her face, to make her crawl, and then to hold her in my arms and kiss her.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I hated her as I
Door's open!" she shouted. She was in her underwear, lying on the floor, arms outstretched and legs up against the couch. She tilted her head back and looked at me upside down. "Charlie, darling! Why are you standing on your head?
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Door's open!
I wanted to know the truth, and yet I was afraid of what I might learn.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I wanted to know the
This was the way we loved, until the night became a silent day. And as I lay there with her I could see how important physical love was, how necessary it was for us to be in each other's arms, giving and taking. The universe was exploding, each particle away from the next, hurtling us into dark and lonely space, eternally tearing us away from each other - child out of the womb, friend away from friend, moving from each other, each through his own pathway toward the goal-box of solitary death.
But this was the counterweight, the act of binding and holding. As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other's hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: This was the way we
But what they don't understand is that I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night-in the moments before I pass off to sleep-ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: But what they don't understand
I don't know why I resented it so intensely to have them think of me as something newly minted in their private treasury, but it was-I am certain-echoes of that idea that had been sounding in the chambers of my mind from the time we had arrived in Chicago. I wanted to get up and show everyone what a fool he was, to shout at him: I'm a human being, a person - with parents and memories and a history - and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I don't know why I
what's wrong with a person wanting to be more intelligent, to acquire knowledge, and understand himself and the world?" "If you'd read your Bible, Charlie, you'd know that it's not meant for man to know more than was given to him to know by the Lord
Daniel Keyes Quotes: what's wrong with a person
... experimental failure, the disproving of a theory, was as important to the advancement of learning as a success would be.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: ... experimental failure, the disproving
My confused feeling for her had been holding me back, and I had to clung to her out of my fear of being forced out on my own, and cut adrift.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: My confused feeling for her
Light and unfeeling. Drifting and expanding through time and space. And then, as I know I am about to pierce the crust of existence, like a flying fish leaping out of the sea, I feel the pull from below.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Light and unfeeling. Drifting and
It doesn't matter what he thinks of himself. Sure he's egotistic, so what? It takes that kind of ego to make a man attempt a thing like this. I've seen enough of men like him to know that mixed in with that pompousness and self-assertion is a goddamned good measure of uncertainty and fear.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: It doesn't matter what he
The last time we were here," I said, "I told you I liked you. I should have trusted myself to say I love you.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The last time we were
I thought: 'My education is driving a wedge between me and the people I love.' And then I wondered: 'What would happen if it were possible to increase a person's intelligence?'
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I thought: 'My education is
I dont no what sience is but they all keep saying it so maybe its someting that helps you have good luk.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: I dont no what sience
how foolish I was ever to have thought that professors were intellectual giants. They're people - and afraid the rest of the world will find out.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: how foolish I was ever
Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: Intelligence and education that hasn't
April 6 - Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it,
But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill, use them, too,,,,

April 7 - I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation…Miss Kinnian says a period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks to learn.
She said; You, got. to-mix?them!up: She showd? me" how, to mix! them; up, and now! I can. mix (up all? kinds of punctuation - in, my. writing! There" are lots, of rules; to learn? but. Im' get'ting them in my head:
One thing? I, like: about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats, the way? it goes; in a business letter (if I ever go! into business?) is that, she: always; gives me' a reason" when - I ask. She"s a gen'ius! I wish? I could be smart-like-her;
Punctuation, is? fun!
Daniel Keyes Quotes: April 6 - Today, I
The path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being
one of many ways
and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.
Daniel Keyes Quotes: The path I choose through
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