Daniel Keyes Quotes

I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.

~ Daniel Keyes

A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.

~ Daniel Keyes

Punctuation, is? fun!

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

Now I understand that one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you've believed in all your life aren't true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.

~ Daniel Keyes

The universe was exploding, each particle away from the next, hurtling us into dark and lonely space, eternally tearing us away from each other - child out of the womb, friend away from friend, moving from each other, each through his own pathway towards the goal-box of solitary death.

~ Daniel Keyes

A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything - all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it.

~ Daniel Keyes

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

~ Daniel Keyes

Thank God for books and music and things I can think about.

~ Daniel Keyes

Its easy to make frends if you let pepul laff at you.

~ Daniel Keyes

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

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

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

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

Before, they had laughed at me, despising me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hated me for my knowledge and understanding. Why? What in God's name did they want of me?

~ Daniel Keyes

I am just as far away from Alice with an I.Q. of 185 as I was when I had an I.Q. of 70. And this time we both know it.

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

I am in love with what I am doing, because the answer to this problem is right here in my mind, and soon - very soon - it will burst into consciousness.

~ Daniel Keyes

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?

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

Even in the world of make-believe there have to be rules. The parts have to be consistent and belong together.

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

ARTIFICIALLY-INDUCED INTELLIGENCE DETERIORATES AT A RATE OF TIME DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE QUANTITY OF THE INCREASE.

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

It doesn't mean,' she shrugged. 'It just is

~ Daniel Keyes

The more she talked that way, the worse I felt. She highlighted my awkwardness, my lack of knowledge about the right things to say and do. I was a blundering adolescent in her eyes, and she was trying to let me down easy.

~ Daniel Keyes

I don't know why I resented it so intensely to have them think of me as something newly minted in their private treasury, but it was-I am certain-echoes of that idea that had been sounding in the chambers of my mind from the time we had arrived in Chicago. I wanted to get up and show everyone what a fool he was, to shout at him: I'm a human being, a person - with parents and memories and a history - and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!

~ Daniel Keyes

Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.--Charlie Gordan

~ Daniel Keyes

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!

~ Daniel Keyes

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.

~ Daniel Keyes

It's a strange sensation to pick up a book you read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover you don't remember it.

~ 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

~ Daniel Keyes

I was afraid it would come to this, but I have no patience with her now. I'm jealous of every moment away from the work - impatient with any one who tries to steal my time.

~ Daniel Keyes

Every part of me is attuned to the work. I soak it up to my pores during the day, and at night - in the moments before I pass off into sleep - ideas explode into my head like fireworks.

~ Daniel Keyes

What an incredible thing! How much less they had than other human beings. Mentally retarded, deaf, mute - and still eagerly sanding benches.

~ Daniel Keyes

Ordinary people, she said, can see only a little bit. They can't change much or go any higher than they are, but you're a genius. You'll keep going up and up, and see more and more. And each step will reveal worlds you never even knew existed.

~ Daniel Keyes

I pray God it is the answer I want, but if not I will accept any answer at all and try to be grateful for what I had.

~ Daniel Keyes