The Neon Bible Quotes

“But I knew the way the people in the town thought about things. They always had some time left over from their life to bother about other people and what they did. They thought they had to get together to help other people out, like the time they got together about the woman who let a colored man borrow her car and told her the best place for her was up north with all the other nigger lovers, and the time they got the veterans with overseas wives out. If you were different from anybody in town, you had to get out. That's why everybody was so much alike. The way they talked, what they did, what they liked, what they hated. If somebody got to hate something and he was the right person, everybody had to hate it too, or people began to hate the ones who didn't hate it. They used to tell us in school to think for yourself, but you couldn't do that in the town. You had to think what your father thought all his life, and that was what everybody thought.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“I was getting tired about what the preacher called Christian. Anything he did was Christian, and the people in his church believed it, too. If he stole some book he didn't like from the library, or made the radio station play only part of the day on Sunday, or took somebody off to the state poor home, he called it Christian. I never had much religious training, and I never went to Sunday school because we didn't belong to the church when I was old enough to go, but I thought I knew what believing in Christ meant, and it wasn't half the things the preacher did.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“If you were different from anybody in town, you had to get out. That's why everybody was so much alike. The way they talked, what they did, what they liked, what they hated. If somebody got to hate something and he was the right person, everybody had to hate it too, or people began to hate the ones who didn't hate it. They used to tell us in school to think for yourself, but you couldn't do that in the town. You had to think what your father thought all his life, and that was what everybody thought.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“- Viens t’agenouiller avec moi près de la fenêtre, David, et prions pour que ta maman se sente bien demain, et que rien n’arrive à ton papa ce soir, et que toi et moi… que toi et moi ne souffrions pas trop, ni demain, ni jamais.
Cela m’avait l’air d’une prière magnifique, alors j’ai regardé par la fenêtre et j’ai commencé, mais mes yeux sont tombés sur la Bible de néon, en dessous de nous, et je n’ai pas pu continuer. Et puis j’ai vu les étoiles du ciel qui brillaient autant que la belle prière et j’ai recommencé, et la prière est venue sans que j’aie à réfléchir, et je l’ai offerte aux étoiles et au ciel de la nuit.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“When I was four Mother gave a party for some of the wives of the factory workers, and Aunt Mae came into the living room in the middle of the party wearing a dress that showed almost all her front, except for the nipples, which I knew you never could show. The party ended soon after that, and as I was sitting on the porch, I heard the women talking to each other as they left. And they were calling Aunt Mae all sorts of names like I had never heard before and really didn’t know the meaning of until I was almost ten years old.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“Me pareció que era una bonita plegaria, así que miré a través de la ventana y empecé a rezar, pero mi mirada tropezó con la Biblia de neón, allá abajo, y no pude continuar. Entonces vi que las estrellas del cielo resplandecían con la hermosa plegaria y empecé de nuevo, recé sin pensar siquiera y ofrecí la oración a las estrellas y al cielo nocturno.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“De modo que aquí estoy, sentado en este tren. Fuera sigue estando oscuro sin más luz que la de los anuncios de neón que aparecen a veces. El traqueteo sobre los raíles es cada vez más rápido, y puedo ver que ahora los árboles cruzan velozmente la luna. Los años que me quedaban antes de ir a la escuela pasaron con tanta rapidez como ahora pasan esos árboles ante la luna.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“Desde entonces no volví a ser tan cariñoso con papá, y él sentía lo mismo hacia mí. Aquello no me gustaba nada. A veces deseaba que pudiéramos ser amigos como antes, pero había algo extraño que ninguno de los dos podíamos cambiar.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“Then read from the treasured volume The poem of thy choice. And lend to the rhyme of the poet The beauty of thy voice. And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible: A Novel

“I was in the Pre-School Play section, but we never played like the name said. We had to listen to stories some old woman read to us out of a grownup book that we didn’t understand.”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“原版定制CCCU文凭证书坎特伯雷大学毕业证书成绩单Q/WeChat:328970823办理CCCU留学认证书/留信认证,订购CCCU学士学位证书,修改CCCU成绩单GPA,Canterbury Christ Church University Diploma Degree Transcript”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible

“原版定制UEL文凭证书东伦敦大学毕业证书成绩单Q/WeChat:328970823办理UEL留学认证书/留信认证,订购UEL学士学位证书,修改UEL成绩单GPA,University of East London Diploma Degree Transcript”
― John Kennedy Toole, The Neon Bible