More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I had my hair permed down the center but cut shorter on the sides, in a recent fit of enthusiasm for the artist who was still then known as Prince and also for the look of a singer named Adam Ant. Despite my stylist’s valiant efforts, my hair looked nothing like theirs. But I did look like someone trying very hard not to look like everyone else; I was elaborately disguised as someone who didn’t care what other people thought of me.
I vowed that when I came back, I wouldn’t do anything to attract notice. I would not get drunk. I would not talk too much.
I’d been studying Greek for seven years, but to this day I’m not sure whether I ever actually learned to read Greek.
Someone had once told me that showing up is ninety percent of life. I scored it more at ninety-eight percent.
It was so much easier to be around other gay people and theater people and people just like me
vambraces.
I try to keep the lessons he taught us in mind to this day, whenever anyone is telling me anything sensitive or personal. We were told that the most important thing was to listen, really listen, and to keep an open mind and heart. We weren’t to ask any questions until and unless we were invited to do so. We were told to be thoughtful about our questions—that they had to be genuine. It was fine to ask for more information or clarification if we were curious or didn’t understand what we’d heard. But questions were never to be used as challenges or veiled criticisms. We were warned particularly
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
woken up to a nightmare, in which I felt that my whole life was a farce, that I was a dreadful person, that I had no reason to go on living. I remember distinctly knowing that I was no less happy or blessed than I had been the day before —I was sure the Valium was the culprit— but I also remember the terror that maybe I would never be happy again, that I would eventually need to end my life to make the agony stop.
Christopher Isherwood.
Most of us admitted to suffering from imposter syndrome; there was relief in that admission.
We also discovered over the course of the fall that we had an eclectic array of fears, ranging from common childhood terrors (Spiders! Mimes!) to more
esoteric phobias (Swiss cheese! Guinea pigs!) to thoroughly adult concerns. Several in our group had grown up in alcoholic homes ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
We discovered at least one shared fear. We were children of the Atomic Age: our communities had well-marked fallout shelters, and we had been taught how to huddle und...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
“Every young man fears that he is not worth loving.” Of course, every young woman, as well.
Each week that went by brought us closer to graduation and the obligation to do something with our lives.
Maxey code, drilled into him by his mother: look people in the eye, be respectful to elders, and leap up to help with the dishes when you are at someone else’s home.
how he always had his most mystical and meaningful experiences in the ocean.
“The connection to the ocean is the only spiritual force in my life.
it felt like I was headed right back to where I started—that once again I could lose everything I had, and that maybe I didn’t deserve any of it. Maybe I had done something wrong.
Perhaps this is a more universal feeling than I thought!
