Quotes from work
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole which reached publication in 1980, eleven years after Toole's suicide. Published through the efforts of writer Walker Percy and Toole's mother, the book became first a cult classic, then a mainstream success; it earned Toole a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, and is now considered a canonical work of modern literature of the Southern United States.The book's title refers to an epigram from Jonathan Swift's essay, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Its central character, Ignatius J. Reilly, is an educated but slothful 30-year-old man living with his mother in the Uptown neighborhood of early-1960s New Orleans who, in his quest for employment, has various adventures with colorful French Quarter characters. Toole wrote the novel in 1963 during his last few months in Puerto Rico.
“I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.”
Variant: ... I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces (1980, posthumous), Ch. 9, p. 226
“When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.”
Ch. 2, section V http://books.google.com/books?id=xXxWIS_KF5gC&q=%22When+Fortuna+spins+you+downward+go+out+to+a+movie+and+get+more+out+of+life%22&pg=PA48#v=onepage
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces (1980, posthumous)
“My life is a rather grim one. One day I shall perhaps describe it to you in great detail.”
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces
“Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today's employer is seeking.”
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces
“I really don't have the time to discuss the errors of your value judgements.”
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces
“Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me?”
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces
“… When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occassional cheese dip.”
Source: A Confederacy of Dunces
