Daniel Keyes

“The answer can't be found in books - or be solved by bringing it to other people. Not unless you want to remain a child all your life. You've got to find the answer inside you - feel the right thing to do. Charlie, you've got to learn to trust yourself”

“The world around me and my past seem far away and distorted, as if time and space were taffy being stretched and looped and twisted out of shape.”

“I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.”

“I just want to be smart like other pepul so I can have lots of frends who like me.”

“By shutting out the real world we can live peacefully in ours. We know that a world without pain is a world without feeling… But a world without feeling is a world without pain.”

“Algernon is so smart he has to solve a problem with a lock that changes every time he goes in to eat so he has to lern something new to get his food. That made me sad because if he coulnt lern he wouldnt be able to eat and he would be hungry.”

“How many great men didn't know enough, or have enough faith in the creative process and in themselves, to let go for the whole mind to work at it?”

“That's the most important thing. If I keep reading, maybe I can hold my own.”

“But I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there's one thing you've all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.”

“I’m “exceptional”- a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of “gifted” and “deprived” (which used to mean “bright” and “retarded”) and as soon as “exceptional” begins to mean anything to anyone they’ll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression as long as it doesn’t mean anything to anybody. “Exceptional” refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I’ve been exceptional.”

“This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy. And now that I've found it, how can I give it up? Life and work are the most wonderful things a man can have.”

“I'm living at a peak of clarity and beauty I never knew existed. Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up into my pores during the day, and at night—in the moments before I pass off into sleep—ideas explode into my head like fireworks. There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem. Incredible that anything could happen to take away this bubbling energy, the zest that fills everything I do. It's as if all the knowledge I've soaked in during the past months has coalesced and lifted me to a peak of light and understanding. This is beauty, love, and truth all rolled into one. This is joy.”

“I love the fact that 'Flowers for Algernon' is doing its part to get people reading.”

“I've learned that intelligence alone doesn't mean a damn thing. It only leads to violence and pain.”

“Shut up!Leave him alone! He cant understand. He cant help what he is ... but for God's sake, have some respect! He's a human being!”

“My father was in the paper recycling business back before they called it recycling.”

“Other people had something I lacked something denied me. In my mental blindness, I had believed it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would have intelligence too.Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men. A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.”

“Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: 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.”

“Intelligence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn.”

“Punctuation, is? fun!”