Louis Kronenberger Quotes

We might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others.

I have an intense dislike for artificial society. In France, one could lead a free life - to do what one wanted to do without interference or criticism from one's neighbors.

Eccentric doesn't bother me. 'Eccentric' being a poetic interpretation of a mathematical term meaning something that doesn't follow the lines - that's okay.

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.

I don't care much about conforming.

I would describe my style as off the wall. I like stuff that doesn't match. I just like to stand out.

I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform.

The American people ... have a stake in con-conformity, for they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

I think there are some people who have this thing where, from the very beginning, some part of them rejects convention.

Since I was a child I didn't like conforming to the various rules pertaining to rituals and traditions.

I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.

You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone.

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service.

I never wanted to be well-rounded. I do not admire well-rounded people nor their work. So far as I can see, nothing good in the world has ever been done by well-rounded people. The good work is done by people with jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things and leave an imprint, a design.

Before you can be eccentric, you must know where the circle is.

If people were like me, there would be no mob, because I don't play that game.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.

Society, to be sure, does not like this very well; it saith, Whoso goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world; he declares all to be unfit to be his companions; it is very uncivil, nay, insulting; Society will retaliate.

Besides, all my New York friends were in the negative, nightmare position of putting down society and giving their tired bookish or political or psychoanalytical reasons, but Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love.

To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant — because you're always going against the conformity of the group.

In this age, the mere example of non-conformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric.

No one was normal, not really.

perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.

I'm not a joiner. I don't like organizations.