Aye! I've just updated my Mental Health Novels section, and of course, this wonderful novel here is a part of it but I didn't actually talk about each book there. I wanted to give them their own spotlight, if I ever will give them a chance to be reviewed lol.
This is a tearjerker classic. You gotta stock up your tissues when reading this one. We are catapulted into Charlie's journal entries as he goes on his journey to intellectual development. In the lab where he will be subjected to an experiment that will make him smart, Charlie befriends Algernon, a predecessor to said experiment.
I won't say any more, in fear of saying too much. But...
I learned so much from this book. Even if it's not happening to you, to me, or to anyone near us, it doesn't mean that it's not happening somewhere else in the world to someone else. Even if it's not affecting us doesn't mean it's not real. BULLYING. STIGMA. PREJUDICE. UNFAIRNESS. These are all nonfiction elements in this nonfiction world. It hurts to know that we've had to be educated about it through fiction but at the very least, it's finally out there. Finally, we're made aware. And as with any other issue, we shouldn't stop at being aware. Like in this novel, one or two kind souls helping those who are alone and in need will make the difference. Imagine the difference we can make if everyone can be kind. I hope we can find it in ourselves to be kind to everyone.
Favourite Lines from:
Flowers for Algernon
by Daniel Keyes
She said never mind but I shouldnt feel bad
if I find out that everybody isnt nice like I think. She said for a person
who God gave so little to you did more than a lot of people with brains they
never even used.
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"The
more intelligent you become the more problems you'll have, Charlie
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Another minute and he'll remember. If only they wouldn't rush him. Why does
everything have to be in such a hurry?
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Now I understand 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.
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"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."'
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How does a person go about learning how to act toward another person? How does a man learn how to behave toward a woman?
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"Charlie, you're wonderful."I caught her hand and held it. "No, it's you. You touch my eye's and make me see."
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It's amazing the way things, apparently disconnected, hang together.
I've moved up to another plateau, and now the streams of the various disciplines seem to be closer to each other as if they flow from a single source.
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People resent being shown that they don't approach the complexities of the problem they don't know what exists beyond the surface ripples.
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They would always find excuses to slip away, afraid to reveal the narrowness of their knowledge.
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They're people-and afraid the rest of the world will find out.
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It had been alright as long as they could laugh at me and appear clever at my expense, but now they were feeling inferior to the moron.
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"But what's wrong with a person wanting to be more intelligent, to acquire knowledge, and understand himself and the world?"
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"There's no going back, Fanny. 'I haven't done anything wrong. I'm like aman born blind who has been given a chance to see light. That can't be sinful. Soon there'll be millions like me all over the world. Science can do it, Fanny.
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So this is how a person can come to despise himself-knowing he's doing
the wrong thing and not being able to stop.
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But perhaps I had been released. Maybe the fear and nausea was no longer a sea to drown in. but only a pool of water reflecting the past
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He reminds me that language is sometimes a barrier instead of a pathway. Ironic
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Anyone can feel intelligent beside a moron."
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When you've got a child like him it's a cross, and you bear it, and love it.
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They had pretended to be geniuses. But they were ordinary men working blindly, pretending to be able to bring light into the darkness. Why is it that everyone lies? No one I know is what he appears to be
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"It doesn't matter what he thinks of himself. Sure he's egotistic, so what? It takes that kind of ego to make a man attempt a thing like this. I've seen enough of men like him to know that mixed in with that pompousness and self-assertion is a goddamned good measure of uncertainty and fear."
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Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed
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And he has the teacher's fear of being surpassed by the student, the master's dread of having the disciple discredit his work
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Nothing in our minds is ever really gone.
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This day was good for me. I've got to stop this childish worrying about myself-my past and my future. Let me give something of myself to others.
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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.
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I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am.
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There is no greater joy than the burst of solution to a problem.
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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. Let me solve this one problem. 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.
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I know enough about the processes of the mind not to let this block worry me too much. Instead of panicking and giving up (or what's even worse, pushing hard for answers that won't come) I've got to take my mind off
the problem for a while and let it stew.
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How many great problems have gone
unsolved because 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?
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"No
one really starts anything new, Mrs Nemur. Everyone builds on other men's
failures. There is nothing really original in science. What each man
contributes to the sum of knowledge is what counts
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"You've become cynical," said Nemur. "That's al this opportunity has meant to you. Your genius has destroyed your faith in the world and in your fellow
men."
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intel igence and education that hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't worth a damn."
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"Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love.
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then it hit me that if I kept on reading and learning new things, even while I was forgetting the old ones, I would be able to keep some of my intel igence. I was on a down escalator now. If I stood stil I'd go all the way to the bottom, but if I started to run up maybe I could at least stay in the same place. The important thing was to keep moving upward no matter what happened.
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