Potent Quotables

Bonus points for anyone who get's the joke in the title of this post.

I'm not sure why but I really enjoy this first quote, I feel it's very informative of Ignatius' personality. He seems to hate anything and everything that represents modern modern America- the fact that even bowling falls victim to Ignatius' discriminant judgment is quite funny to me.

"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." (Toole 101)

This next quote appears right as Myrna arrives to rescue Ignatius from the mental hospital ambulance. This is a great example of the melodrama that is so constant with Ignatius' thoughts. Also another example of Toole's ability to write i dialogue without actually doing so (see rhetoric post).

Fortuna had relented. She was not depraved enough to end this vicious cycle by throttling him in a straitjacket, by sealing him up in a cement block tomb lighted by florescent tubes. Fortuna wished to make amends. Somehow she had summoned and flushed Myrna minx from a subway tube, from some picket line, for the pungent bed of some Eurasian existentialist, from the hands of some epileptic Negro Buddhist, from the verbose midst of a group therapy session. (Toole 389)

Ignatius hates the middle-class, bourgeoisie philosophy and associates it with everything that is wrong with the world ever since the French Revolution. This quote is an attestation of his strange and different world views, which I believe we can all, in someway, learn from. Also, I enjoy the tangent he goes on about the bliss being black and not being able to get a decent job would bring him.

I do admire the terror which Negroes are able to inspire in the hearts of some members of the white proletariat and only wish (This is a rather personal confession.) that I possessed the ability to similarly terrorize. The Negro terrorizes simply by being himself; I however, must browbeat a bit in order to achieve the same end. Perhaps I should have been a Negro. I suspect that I would have been a rather large and terrifying one, continually pressing my ample thigh against the withered thighs of old white ladies in public conveyances a great deal and eliciting more than one shriek of panic. Then, too, if I were a Negro, I would not be pressured by my mother to find a good job, for no good jobs would be available. (Toole 123)