75 A Confederacy of Dunces Quotes by John Kennedy Toole

A Confederacy of Dunces is a picaresque book by John Kennedy Toole, published posthumously in 1980, 11 years after Toole’s death.

The book is a humor classic that describes the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a colossal, fat, and obnoxious guy.

Here are some of the most popular quotes from A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

A Confederacy of Dunces Quotes by John Kennedy Toole

“When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Filth!’ Ignatious shouted, spewing wet popcorn over rows. ‘How dare she pretend to be a virgin. Look at her degenerate face. Rape her!” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“You must realize the fear and hatred which my weltanschauung instills in people.” ~ John Kennedy Toole , A Confederacy of Dunces.

“Canned food is a perversion,’ Ignatius said. ‘I suspect that it is ultimately very damaging to the soul.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I suspect that I am the result of particularly weak conception on the part of my father. His sperm was probably emitted in a rather offhand manner.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“My mother is currently associating with some undesirables who are attempting to transform her into an athlete of sorts, deprave specimens of mankind who regularly bowl their way to oblivion.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“… I tried to end our little duel. I called out pacifying words; I entreated; I finally surrendered. Still Clyde came, my pirate costume so great a success that it had apparently convinced him that we were back in the golden days of romantic old New Orleans when gentlemen decided matters of hot dog honor at twenty paces” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Employers sense in me a denial of their values…They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century which I loathe.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Go dangle your withered parts over the toilet!’ Ignatius screamed savagely.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

Quotes from A Confederacy of Dunces

“I was appalled that so meaningless a person would dare such effrontery.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“The only excursion of my life outside of New Orleans took me through the vortex to the whirlpool of despair: Baton Rouge. . . . New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“My life is a rather grim one. One day I shall perhaps describe it to you in great detail.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Like a bitch in heat, I seem to attract a coterie of policemen and sanitation officials. ” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Mothers got a hard road to travel, believe me.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“A firm rule must be imposed upon our nation before it destroys itself. The United States needs some theology and geometry, some taste and decency. I suspect that we are teetering on the edge of the abyss.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person’s lack of theology and geometry; it could even cast doubts upon one’s soul.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I am an anachronism. People realize this and resent it.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“This…is a new crutch to help you make excuses for your meaningless, impotent existence.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today’s employer is seeking. ” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

Best Confederacy of Dunces Quotes

“Had you ‘artists’ had a part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, it would have ended up looking like a particularly vulgar train terminal,” Ignatius snorted.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I refuse to “look up.” Optimism nauseates me. It is perverse. Since man’s fall, his proper position in the universe has been one of misery.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“It will all end very badly, Gus” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“It’s not your fate to be well treated,” Ignatius cried. “You’re an overt masochist. Nice treatment will confuse and destroy you.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“No wonder you’ve turned on me so savagely. I suspect that you are using me as a scapegoat for your own feelings of guilt.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Like two figures in the medieval Morality play, Pragmatism and Morality spar in the boxing ring of my brain.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“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!” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“You can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Mother went out again tonight, looking like a courtesan.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I bet you cook good, huh?” Darlene asked. “Mother doesn’t cook,” Ignatius said dogmatically. “She burns.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Too long have I confined myself in Miltonic isolation and meditation. It is clearly time for me to step boldly into our society, not in the boring, passive manner of the Myrna Minkoff school of social action, but with great style and zest.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“You could tell by the way he talked, though, that he had gone to school a long time. That was probably what was wrong with him.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“The only problem that those people have anyway is that they don’t like new cars and hair sprays. That’s why they are put away. They make the other members of the society fearful. Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and subdivisions.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

Interesting Confederacy of Dunces Quotes

“Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Do you think that I want to live in a communal society with people like that Battaglia acquaintance of yours, sweeping streets and breaking up rocks or whatever it is people are always doing in those blighted countries? What I want is a good, strong monarchy with a tasteful and decent king who has some knowledge of theology and geometry and to cultivate a Rich Inner Life.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I recommend Batman especially, for he tends to transcend the abysmal society in which he’s found himself. His morality is rather rigid, also. I rather respect Batman.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“…The nation as a whole has no contact with reality. That is only one of the reasons why I have always been forced to exist on the fringes of its society, consigned to the Limbo reserved for those who do know reality when they see it.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Had that poor Reilly kook really been proud of Levy Pants? He had always said that he was. That was one good sign of his insanity.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“The day before me is fraught with God knows what horrors.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Perhaps the experience can give my writing a new dimension. Being actively engaged in the system which I criticize will be an interesting irony in itself.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Will you please stop screeching like a fishmonger and run along? Don’t you have a bottle of muscatel baking in the oven?” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Oh, my God!” Ignatius bellowed from the front of the house. “What an egregious insult to good taste.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Like a bitch in heat, I seem to attract a coterie of policemen and sanitation officials. The world will someday get me on some ludicrous pretext; I simply await the day that they drag me to some air-conditioned dungeon and leave me there beneath the fluorescent lights and soundproofed ceiling to pay the price for scorning all that they hold dear within their little latex hearts.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“…I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

Insightful Confederacy of Dunces Quotes

“Over the years I have become very good at getting out of things I don’t want to do.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Clean, hard-working, dependable, quiet type.’ Good God! What kind of monster is this that they want. I am afraid that I could never work for a concern with a worldview like that.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I really don’t have the time to discuss the errors of your value judgements.” ― john kennedy toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

“Mother doesn’t cook, Ignatius said dogmatically, She burns.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Social Note: I have sought escape in the Prytania on more than one occasion, pulled by the attractions of some technicolored horrors, filmed abortions that were offenses against any criteria of taste and decency, reels and reels of perversion and blasphemy that stunned my disbelieving eyes, the shocked my virginal mind, and sealed my valve.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Psycho? The woman’s senile. We had to stop at about thirty gas stations on the way over here. Finally I got tired of getting out of the car and showing her which was the Men’s and which was the Women’s, so I let her pick them herself. I worked out a system. The law of averages. I laid money on her and she came out about fifty-fifty.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Employers sense in me a denial of their values…they fear me. i suspect that they can see that i am forced to function in a century which i loathe.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“This liberal doxy must be impaled on the member of a particularly large stallion!” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“…When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occassional cheese dip.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

Powerful Confederacy of Dunces Quotes

“Every difficult work presents us with a choice of whether to judge the author inept for not being clear, or ourselves stupid for not grasping what is going on. Montaigne encouraged us to blame the author. An incomprehensible prose-style is likely to have resulted more from laziness than cleverness; what reads easily is rarely so written…” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I want that Easter Ham. Where’s my Thanksgiving Turkey?” Miss Trixie snarled” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Is my paranoia getting completely out of hand, or are you mongoloids really talking about me?” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Hey! All you peoples draggin along here. Stop and come stick your ass on a Night of Joy stool,” he started again. “Night of Joy got genuine color peoples workin below the minimal wage. Whoa! Guarantee plantation atmosphere, got cotton growin right on the stage right in front your eyeball, got a civil right worker gettin his ass beat up between show. Hey!” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“In other words, you want to become totally bourgeois. You people have all been brainwashed. I imagine that you’d like to become a success or something equally vile.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Mrs. Reilly called in that accent that occurs south of New Jersey only in New Orleans, that Hoboken near the Gulf of Mexico.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I should have known that every time I open the door of my room I am literally opening a Pandora’s Box.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“So we see that even when Fortuna spins us downward, the wheel sometimes halts for a moment and we find ourselves in a good, small cycle within the larger bad cycle. The universe, of course, is based upon the principle of the circle within the circle. At the moment, I am in an inner circle. Of course, smaller circles within this circle are also possible.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I avoid that bleak first hour of the working day during which my still sluggish senses and body make every chore a penance. I find that in arriving later, the work which I do perform is of a much higher quality.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“With the breakdown of the medieval system, the gods of chaos, lunacy, and bad taste gained ascendancy.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Do I believe the total perversion that I am witnessing?” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Oh, Fortuna, blind, heedless goddess, I am strapped to your wheel,’ Ignatius belched, ‘Do not crush me beneath your spokes. Raise me on high, divinity.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“In my private apocalypse he will be impaled upon his own nightstick.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“I would very much like to know what the Founding Fathers would say if they could see these children being debauched to further the cause of Clearasil. However, I always suspected that democracy would come to this.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Stop!’ I cried imploringly to my god-like mind.” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

“Oh, Fortuna, you capricious sprite!” ~ John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces).

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