A Confederacy of Dunces

by John Kennedy Toole

“Please.” Ignatius fumbled through his smock to find the curb and raise himself. “You can’t possibly realize how confused you are. Your value judgments are all wrong. When you get to the top or wherever it is that you want to go, you’ll have a nervous breakdown or worse. Do you know of any Negroes with ulcers? Of course not. Live contentedly in some hovel. Thank Fortuna that you have no Caucasian parent hounding you. Read Boethius.”

Of note

“They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don’t you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won’t be a robot!”

Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions.”

“Just who the hell are you to try to tell me what to do, Ignatius?” Mrs. Reilly stared at her huffing son. She was disgusted and tired, disinterested in anything that Ignatius might have to say. “Claude is dumb. Okay. I’ll grant you that. Claude is all the time worrying me about them communiss. Okay. Maybe he don’t know nothing about politics. But I ain’t worried about politics. I’m worried about dying halfway decent. Claude can be kind to a person, and that’s more than you can do with all your politics and all your graduating smart. For everything nice I ever done for you, I just get kicked around. I want to be treated nice by somebody before I die. You learnt everything, Ignatius, except how to be a human being.”