Flowers for Algernon

by Daniel Keyes

She said for a person who God gave so little to you did more than a lot of people with brains they never even used.

You say, ‘see other women.’ How can I when I don’t know any other women? Something inside is burning me up, and all I know is it makes me think of you.

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.”

intelligence and education that hasn’t been tempered by human affection isn’t worth a damn.”

Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.