John Kennedy Toole (December 17,1937 –March 26,1969) was an American novelist best known for his posthumously published comic novelA Confederacy of Dunces, which won thePulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.

Quotations are cited from the 1981 Grove Press reprint.

• "Is it the part of the police department to harass me whenthis city is a flagrant vice capital of the civilized world?" Ignatius bellowed over the crowd in front of the store. "This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, anti-Christs, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, jades, litterbugs, and lesbians, all of whom are only too well protected by graft."
  • Ch. 1, p. 21

• ""With the breakdown of the Medieval system, the gods of Chaos, Lunacy, and Bad Taste gained ascendancy."
  • Ch. 2, opening line

• When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.
  • Ch. 2, section V

• The human desire for food and sex is relatively equal. If there are armed rapes, why should there not be armed hot dog thefts?
  • Ch. 7, p. 184

• You can always tell employees of the government by the total vacancy which occupies the space where most other people have faces.
  • Ch. 9, p. 226

• "The war had been on for quite a while now when Poppa got his notice from the draft. He didn't have to go, but he more or less enlisted. Mother and I and Aunt Mae went down to the train to see him off, and when he left he kissed Mother and he cried, and I'd never seen a man cry before. The train pulled away, and we stood there and watched it go, and Mother kept looking long after it had passed around the hill.
  • Ch. 4, opening paragraph.

Wikipedia has an article about:

John Kennedy Toole

• Pulitzer Prize winners
• 1969 deaths
• Novelists from the United States
• People from Louisiana
• People from New Orleans
• Suicides