Charlie Algernon Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

I may soon be coming to Warren, tos pend the rest of my life with the others ... waiting. — Daniel Keyes

I found nothing really wrong with this autobiography except poor choice of subject. — Clifton Fadiman

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

They've come to overthrow the court, sir! — Samuel Parris

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

This world will slam doors in your face at every opportunity. Be willing to employ a foot when necessary. — Wes Fesler

Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here. — Daniel Keyes

The only question now is: How much can I hang on to? — Daniel Keyes

I felt like that character in Flowers for Algernon. Not Charlie, the lady teacher from the college who realizes, 'I've got to stop dry-humping this mentally challenged guy! — Tina Fey

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

Why am I always looking at life through a window? — 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

I may not have all the time I thought I had... — Daniel Keyes

The most important thing had always been what other people thought-appearances before herself or her family. And righteous about it. Time and again Matt had insisted that what others thought about you wasn't the only thing in life. But it did no good. Norma had to dress well; the house had to have fine furniture; Charlie had to be kept inside so that other people wouldn't know anything was wrong. — Daniel Keyes

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

Strauss again brought up my need to speak and wrtie simply and directly so that people will understand me. He reminds me that language is sometimes a barrier instead of a pathway. Ironic to find myself on the other side of the intellectual fence. — Daniel Keyes

Gideon was a man who'd lived an entirely solitary life, and yet he'd accepted me into it so completely that he could envision a future I was afraid to imagine. I was so scared I'd only be setting myself up for a heartbreak I couldn't survive. — Sylvia Day

My perspective is hard because I look at wardrobe from very much a guy's perspective. You look at my closet and I have pairs of black jeans and five button-downs, but one's silk, one's cotton. They all are slightly different, so that's my perspective. — Erin Wasson