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.

I only feel like myself when I am alone.

I suppose most people would think that it was wonderful, that the world is so varied, that there is something for everyone, and I don't know why I felt so closed and bitter and threatened by things I did not like.

You're so young... Are you sure that's what you want your life to be, forever and ever? That job? That career? That girlfriend?

Unfortunately I have never been good in math. Numbers simply do not interest me or seem as real to me as words.

I felt this awful obligation to be charming or at least have something to say, and the pressure of having to be charming (or merely verbal) incapacitates me.

I think that’s what scares me: the randomness of everything. That the people who could be important to you might just pass you by. Or you pass them by.