Quote 5

"Ignatius, don't you think maybe you'd be happy if you went and took you a little rest at Charity?"

"Are you referring to the psychiatric ward by any chance?" Ignatius demanded in a rage. "Do you think that I am insane? Do you suppose that some stupid psychiatrist could even attempt to fathom the work­ings of my psyche?"

"You could just rest, honey. You could write some stuff in your little copybooks."

"They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don't you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won't be a robot!"

"But, Ignatius, they help out a lot of people got problems."

"Do you think that I have a problem?" Ignatius bellowed. "The only problem that those people have anyway is that they don't like new cars and hair sprays. That's why they are put away. They make the other members of the society fearful. Every asylum in this nation is filled with poor souls who simply cannot stand lanolin, cellophane, plastic, television, and sub­divisions."

"Ignatius, that ain't true. You remember old Mr. Becnel used to live down the block? They locked him up because he was running down the street naked."

"Of course he was running down the street naked. His skin could not bear any more of that dacron and nylon clothing that was clogging his pores. I've always considered Mr. Becnel one of the martyrs of our age..."

--John Kennedy Toole
A Confederacy of Dunces

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