Daniel Keyes Quotes

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

Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. 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. Is there time?

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

There are a lot of people who will give money or materials, but very few who will give time and affection.

How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence.

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.

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.

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

The path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being--one of many ways--and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.

If your smart you can have lots of frends to talk to and you never get lonley by yourself all the time.

People think it's funny when a dumb person can't do things the same way they can.

Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined them in laughing at myself. That hurts the most.

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

Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed.

So this is how a person can come to despise himself-knowing he's doing the wrong thing and not being able to stop.

Why am I always looking at life through a window?

Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here.

I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried.

Im like a man whos been half-asleep all his life, trying to find out what he was like before he woke up.

I can't afford to spend my time with anyone - there's only enough left for myself

...Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life like you said to be smart because I learned a lot of things that I never knew were in this world, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit.

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

Thank God for books and music and things I can think about." --Charlie Gordan

Who's to say that my light is better than your darkness? Who's to say death is better than your darkness? Who am I to say?