Daniel Keyes Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Daniel Keyes.
Famous Quotes By Daniel Keyes
I realize now that my feeling for Alice had been moving backward against the current of my learning, from worship, to love, to fondness, to a feeling of gratitude and responsibility. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
I was her bestist pupil in the Beckman School for retarted adults and I tryed the hardist becus I reely wantd to lern I wantid it more even then pepul who are smarter even then me. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
There are a lot of people who will give money or materials, but very few who will give time and affection. — Daniel Keyes
Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it. — Daniel Keyes
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
The more she talked that way, the worse I felt. She highlighted my awkwardness, my lack of knowledge about the right things to say and do. I was a blundering adolescent in her eyes, and she was trying to let me down easy. — Daniel Keyes
I may soon be coming to Warren, tos pend the rest of my life with the others ... waiting. — Daniel Keyes
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
And now - Plato's words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames: ' ... the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes. — Daniel Keyes
Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up to my pores during the day, and at night - in the moments before I pass off into sleep - ideas explode into my head like fireworks. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
I'm not close to him." He looked at me defiantly. "But he's put his whole life into this. He's no Freud or Jung or Pavlov or Watson, but he's doing something important and I respect his dedication - maybe even more because he's just an ordinary man trying to do a great man's work, while the great men are all busy making bombs. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
Seeing Charlie huddled beneath the covers I wish I could give him comfort, explain to him that he has done nothing wrong, that is beyond him to change his mother's attitude back to what it was before his sister came. There on the bed, Charlie did not understand what they were saying, but now it hurts. If I could reach out into the past of my memories, I would make her see how much she was hurting me. — Daniel Keyes
Algernon is so smart he has to solve a problem with a lock that changes every time he goes in to eat so he has to lern something new to get his food. That made me sad because if he coulnt lern he wouldnt be able to eat and he would be hungry. — Daniel Keyes
That's the thing about human life
there is no control group, no way to ever know how any of us would have turned out if any variables had been changed. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
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
I see now that when Norma flowered in our garden I became a weed, allowed to exist only where I would not be seen, in corners and dark places. — Daniel Keyes
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
She was excited by the idea of having something dedicated to her, but I don't think she really liked it. Just goes to show that you can't have everything you want in one woman.One more argument for polygamy. — Daniel Keyes
It's a strange sensation to pick up a book you read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover you don't remember it. — Daniel Keyes
The more intelligent you become the more problems you'll have, Charlie. — Daniel Keyes
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
The answer can't be found in books - or be solved by bringing it to other people. Not unless you want to remain a child all your life. You've got to find the answer inside you - feel the right thing to do. Charlie, you've got to learn to trust yourself — Daniel Keyes
The only question now is: How much can I hang on to? — Daniel Keyes
Punctuation, is? fun! — Daniel Keyes
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
It doesn't mean,' she shrugged. 'It just is — Daniel Keyes
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
Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here. — Daniel Keyes
I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried. — Daniel Keyes
Now I understand that one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you've believed in all your life aren't true, and that nothing is what it appears to be. — Daniel Keyes
I wanted to be in love with her. I wanted to overcome my emotional and sexual fears, to marry, have children, settle down. — Daniel Keyes
If your smart you can have lots of frends to talk to and you never get lonley by yourself all the time. — Daniel Keyes
P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard. — Daniel Keyes
Then when you want free association, you could stretch your patient out the way the barber does to lather up his customer, and when the fifty minutes are up, you could tilt the chair forward again and hand him a mirror so he can see what he looks like on the outside after you've shaved his ego. — Daniel Keyes
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
I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been. — Daniel Keyes
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
had reached a new level, and anger and suspicion were my first reactions to the world around me. Burt's — Daniel Keyes
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 towards the goal-box of solitary death. — Daniel Keyes
Algernon is a pleasant companion. At mealtimes, he takes his place at the small gateleg table. He likes pretzels, and today he took a sip of beer while we watched the ballgame on TV. I think he rooted for the Yankees. — Daniel Keyes
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
Seeing myself in the front mirror looking into the back mirror, as he held it for me, it tilted for an instant into the one angle that produced the illusion of depth; endless corridors of myself... looking at myself... looking at myself... looking... Which one? Who was I? — Daniel Keyes
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 into sleep - ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy. — Daniel Keyes
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
Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness? Who's to say death is better than your darkness? Who am I to say? — Daniel Keyes
Alice knows everything about me, and accepts the fact that we can be together for only a short while. She has agreed to go away when I tell her to go. It's painful to think about that, but what we have, I suspect, is more than most people find in a lifetime. — Daniel Keyes
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
Downhill. Thoughts of suicide to stop it all now while I am still in control and aware of the world around me. But then I think of Charlie waiting at the window. His life is not mine to throw away. I've just burrowed it for a while, and now I'm being asked to return it. — Daniel Keyes
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
Another case of men devoting their lives to studying more and more about less and less - filling — Daniel Keyes
Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees anyone whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
I was afraid it would come to this, but I have no patience with her now. I'm jealous of every moment away from the work - impatient with any one who tries to steal my time. — Daniel Keyes
Whatever happens to me, I will have lived a thousand normal lives by what I might add to others not yet born. — Daniel Keyes
I can't afford to spend my time with anyone - there's only enough left for myself — Daniel Keyes
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
But with the freedom came a sadness. — Daniel Keyes
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
If I didn't understand what was happening at the time, he says, then it doesn't matter. I'm no more to blame than the knife is to blame in a stabbing, or the car in a collision.
"But I'm not an inanimate object," I argued. "I'm a person."
He looked confused for a moment and then laughed. "Of course, Charlie. But I wasn't referring to now. I meant before the operation."
Smug, pompous - I felt like hitting him too. "I was a person before the operation. In case you forgot - "
"Yes, of course, Charlie. Don't misunderstand. But it was different ... " And then he remembered that he had to check some charts in the lab. — Daniel Keyes
Holy smoke I reely pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. — Daniel Keyes
Its easy to have frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go. — Daniel Keyes
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
How can I make him understand that he did not create me?
He makes the same mistake as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don't understand there are human feelings involved. — Daniel Keyes
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
Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn. — Daniel Keyes
If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me. Im glad I got a second chanse in life like you said to be smart because I lerned alot of things that I never even new were in this werld and Im grateful I saw it all even for a littel bit. And Im glad I found out all about my family and me. It was like I never had a family til I remembird about them and saw them and now I know I had a family and I was a person just like evryone. — Daniel Keyes
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
I hate that mouse — Daniel Keyes
When you mature intellectually we may not be able to communicate. When you mature emotionally you may not even want me. — Daniel Keyes
That's the most important thing. If I keep reading, maybe I can hold my own. — Daniel Keyes
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
How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes - how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence. — Daniel Keyes
I may not have all the time I thought I had... — Daniel Keyes
As soon as ... begins to mean anything to anyone they'll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody. — Daniel Keyes
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
I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me. — Daniel Keyes
I want to stop time, freeze myself at this level and never let go of her. — Daniel Keyes
Here look at me. I'm Charlie, the son you wrote off the books? Not that I blame you for it, but here I am, all fixed up better than ever. Test me. Ask me questions. I speak twenty languages, living and dead; I'm a mathematical whiz, and I'm writing a piano concerto that will make them remember me long after I'm gone. — Daniel Keyes
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
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
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
I'm "exceptional"- a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of "gifted" and "deprived" (which used to mean "bright" and "retarded") and as soon as "exceptional" begins to mean anything to anyone they'll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody. "Exceptional" refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I've been exceptional. — Daniel Keyes
Unlike Charlie, I was incapable of making friends or thinking about other people and their problems. I was interested in myself, and myself only. Fr one long moment in that mirror I had seen myself through Charlie's eyes - looked down at myself and saw what I had really become. And I was ashamed. — Daniel Keyes
Why am I always looking at life through a window? — Daniel Keyes
. . . the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes . . .' October — Daniel Keyes