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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.

Peter Cameron

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More quotes by Peter Cameron

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I often feel like I want to think something but I can't find the language that coincides with the thoughts, so it remains felt, not thought. Sometimes I feel like I'm thinking in Swedish without knowing Swedish.
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One man’s nonsense is another man’s sense.
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What if she was meant to be, or could have been, someone important in my life? 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.
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New York is strange in the summer. Life goes on as usual but it’s not, it’s like everyone is just pretending, as if everyone has been cast as the star in a movie about their life, so they’re one step removed from it. And then in September it all gets normal again.
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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.
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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?
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It wouldn't kill you to get me an iced coffee. No, but not getting killed doing something is not a very compelling reason to do it.
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She had all the best things wrong with her—incest, insanity, drug addiction, bulimia, alopecia: you name it. All the perfect stuff for a memoir. She’s so lucky.
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I knew my mother was right, but that didn't change the way I felt about things. People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind.
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I thought the best thing to do would be nothing, and in that way things couldn’t get any worse.
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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.
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Sometimes I envy religious people for the comfort of believing. It would make everything so much easier.
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Are you okay?' she asked me. Of course,' I said. 'Why wouldn't I be okay?' There are lots of reasons why you might not be okay.' There are lots of reasons why anyone might not be okay,' I said.
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I only feel like myself when I am alone.
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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!
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Most people think things are not real unless they are spoken, that it's the uttering of something, not the thinking of it, that legitimizes it. I suppose this is why people always want other people to say I love you. I think just the opposite—that thoughts are realest when thought, that expressing them distorts or dilutes them.
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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.
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I don't think I could ever work in such a blatantly hierarchical corporate setting. I know that everyone in this world is not equal, but I can't bear environments that make this truth so obvious.
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Interacting with other people does not come naturally to me it is a strain and requires effort, and since it does not come naturally I feel like I am not really myself when I make that effort. I feel fairly comfortable with my family, but even with them I sometimes feel the strain of not being alone.
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