Here 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.

I’m “exceptional”- a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of “gifted” and “deprived” (which used to mean “bright” and “retarded”) and as soon as “exceptional” begins to mean anything to anyone they’ll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression as long as it doesn’t mean anything to anybody. “Exceptional” refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I’ve been exceptional.

Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed.

Because I want to see. I've got to know what's going to happen while I'm still enough in control to be able to do something about it.

And 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.

What an incredible thing! How much less they had than other human beings. Mentally retarded, deaf, mute - and still eagerly sanding benches.

Even in the world of make-believe there have to be rules. The parts have to be consistent and belong together.