On one reading it might give an impression of devotion and acquiescence, and on another it appeared indecisive or ambivalent. I didn’t know what I wanted from him. What I seemed to want, though I didn’t like to believe this, was for him to renounce every other person and thing in his life and pledge himself to me exclusively. This was outlandish

I was aware of the fact that he could pretend to be anyone he wanted to be, and I wondered if he also lacked a “real personality” the same way I did.

nothing to say that wouldn’t make me feel unwelcome.

You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.

I could see I had entered a new social setting now, where severe mental illness no longer had unfashionable connotations. I was going through a second upbringing: learning a new set of assumptions, and feigning a greater level of understanding than I really possessed. By this logic Nick and Melissa were like my parents bringing me into the world,

I concluded that some kinds of reality have an unrealistic effect,

Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought. I need to relax and let things go.

I didn’t belong in rich people’s houses. I was only ever invited to places like that because of Bobbi, who belonged everywhere and had a quality about her that made me invisible by comparison.

At times I thought this was the worst misery I had experienced in my life, but it was also a very shallow misery, which at any time could have been relieved completely by a word from him and transformed into idiotic happiness.