So this is how a person can come to despise himself-knowing he's doing the wrong thing and not being able to stop.
Daniel KeyesHere look at me. I'm Charlie, the son you wrote off the books? Not that I blame you for it, but here I am, all fixed up better than ever. Test me. Ask me questions. I speak twenty languages, living and dead; I'm a mathematical whiz, and I'm writing a piano concerto that will make them remember me long after I'm gone.
Daniel KeyesAnd now - Plato's words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames: '...the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes.
Daniel KeyesHow can I make him understand that he did not create me? He makes the same mistake as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don't understand there are human feelings involved.
Daniel KeyesIโm โexceptionalโ- a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of โgiftedโ and โdeprivedโ (which used to mean โbrightโ and โretardedโ) and as soon as โexceptionalโ begins to mean anything to anyone theyโll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression as long as it doesnโt mean anything to anybody. โExceptionalโ refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life Iโve been exceptional.
Daniel Keyes