A Confederacy of Dunces

by John Kennedy Toole

What had once been dedicated to the soul was now dedicated to the sale.

Any connection between American art and American nature is purely coincidental, but this is only because the nation as a whole has no contact with reality.

New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.

In a sense I have always felt something of a kinship with the colored race because its position is the same as mine: we both exist outside the inner realm of American society. Of course, my exile is voluntary.

You can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces.”

You learnt everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being.”