Dr. Adler had instructed me to always say whatever I was thinking, but this was difficult for me, for the act of thinking and the act of articulating those thoughts were not synchronous to me, or even necessarily consecutive. I knew that I thought and spoke in the same language and that theoretically there should be no reason why I could not express my thoughts as they occurred or soon thereafter, but the language in which I thought and the language in which I spoke, though both English, often seemed divided by a gap that could not be simultaneously, or even retrospectively, bridged.
Peter CameronI actually grew fond of her in a nastily superior kind of way. For she was so completely artless and optimistic and clueless, she didn't care that she smelled bad or was fat or wore clothes unlike everyone else's, she had some weird disconnect with life that kept her constantly bubbling, and you knew she would go blithely through her long horribly boring life thinking every thing was just swell (the opposite of me).
Peter CameronI found the idea of being a librarian very appealing--working in a place where people had to whisper and only speak when necessary. If only the world were like that!
Peter CameronIt made me very sad, that question. Sad and defeated. Because I knew she knew why I was thinking about that woman-I was thinking about my own tendencies toward aloneness and I thought I could end up like that woman, with a bird perhaps, or a dog-probably a dog, I know birds are supposed to make good pets but I think there's something creepy about them-but alone with a life that didn't touch or overlap with anyone else's, a sort of hermetically sealed life.
Peter CameronAre you okay?' she asked me. Of course,' I said. 'Why wouldn't I be okay?' There are lots of reasons why you might not be okay.' There are lots of reasons why anyone might not be okay,' I said.
Peter CameronAnd the boys were all clean, their faces freshly and brutally shaved, their hair painstakingly gelled into exquisite apparent carelessness, with this electric feeling inside of them, which matched the feelings in the girls, that they were all ascending, moving into a future that could only improve them, and I wondered what it was like - the miracle, the stupidity of feeling that.
Peter Cameron