Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.

What teachers and the administration in that era never seemed to see was that the mental work of what they called daydreaming often required more effort and concentration than it would have taken simply to listen in class. Laziness is not the issue. It is just not the work dictated by the administration.

The parts of me that used to think I was different or smarter or whatever, almost made me die.

There are no choices without personal freedom, Buckeroo. It's not us who are dead inside. These things you find so weak and contemptible in us - these are just the hazards of being free.

[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is.

It takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak.

Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic and a dyslexic?