The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.

“Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.”

“He’s a wallflower.”

“You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand.”

And I started to cry. And nobody in that room looked at me weird for doing it. And then I really started to cry.

And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

First, I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.

I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn’t.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.

She really did look sad, and I wished I could have made her feel better, but sometimes, I guess you just can’t.

I don’t understand that. I would give someone a record so they could love the record, not so they would always know that I gave it to them.

and I know that things get worse before they get better because that’s what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big.

There’s nothing like the deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons. It was that great.

“I would die for you. But I won’t live for you.” Something like that. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people “participate.”

You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.

So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.

And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn’t really change the fact that you have what you have. Good and bad.

So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they’re not, they will be soon enough.