It seemed that everyone else could mate, could fit their parts together in pleasant and productive ways, but that some almost indistinguishable difference in my anatomy and psyche set me slightly, yet irrevocably, apart.

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 hate stand-up comics; I think funny is something you are, not something you desperately try to be in front of a roomful of obnoxious people.

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?

I always looked forward to being an adult, because I thought the adult world was, well—adult. That adults weren’t cliquey or nasty, that the whole notion of being cool, or in, or popular would case to be the arbiter of all things social, but I was beginning to realize that the adult world was as nonsensically brutal and socially perilous as the kingdom of childhood.

I 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!

They're both about the correct or proper way to do something. There is a correct and proper way to use words and there is a correct and proper way to behave with other people. And I behaved improperly with John and feel bad, so I compensate by obsessing with language, which is easier to control than behavior.