Strange about learning; the farther I go the more I see that I never knew even existed. A short while ago I foolishly thought I could learn everything - all the knowledge in the world. Now I hope only to be able to know of its existence, and to understand one grain of it. Is there time?

I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.

When he admitted this to me, I found myself almost annoyed. It was as if he'd hidden this part of himself in order to deceive me, pretending-- as do many people I've discovered--to be what he is not. No one I've ever known is what he appears to be on the surface.

Dr. Strauss said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motor-vation. I never ever knew I had that. I felt proud when he said that not every body with an eye-q of 68 had that thing. I don't know what it is or where I got it but he said Algernon had it too. Algernons motor-vation is the cheese they put in his box. But it can't be that because I didn't eat any cheese last week.

I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the backyard. I cried.

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.

So this is how a person can come to despise himself-knowing he's doing the wrong thing and not being able to stop.