“People say I talk slowly. I talk in a way sometimes called laconic. The phone rings, I answer, and people ask if they’ve woken me up. I lose my way in the middle of sentences, leaving people hanging for minutes. I have no control over it. I’ll be talking, and will be interested in what I’m saying, but then someone—I’m convinced this what happens—someone—and I wish I knew who, because I would have words for this person—for a short time, borrows my head. Like a battery is borrowed from a calculator to power a remote control, someone, always, is borrowing my head.”

“When someone is talking about their job, and they turn to me and ask me what I do, I stare off into space, let my eyes glaze over, and wistfully say, “I often wonder what I’m doing.”

“I wanted what most people wanted—love, companionship.I wanted someone to touch. I wanted someone to touch me back.I wanted someone to laugh with, someone who would laugh with me, laugh at me.I wanted someone who looked and sawme . Not my power, not my position.I wanted someone to say my name. To call out, “Merit,” when it was time to go, or when we arrived.Someone who wanted to say to someone else, with pride, “I’m here with her. With Merit.”I wanted all those things. Indivisibly.But I didn’t want them from Morgan.”

“Sometimes I’ll be talking to someone, and I’ll be like ‘Yeah, I’ve been really lonely lately’ and they’ll be like ‘Well we should hang out!’ and I’m like ‘No, that’s not what I meant. That’s not what I meant at all.”

“I just have a hard time with small talk. My friend Jocelyn says I'm too quiet. But I'm really not quiet. I just tend to come across that way to new people because I don't like to talk first. What if the other person doesn't want to be bothered?”

“To me the great divide is between the talkative and the quiet. Do they just say everything that's on their minds, even before it's on their minds? Sometimes I think I could just turn up my head like a Walkman so what's going on there could be heard by others. But there would still be a difference. For inside the head they are talking to people like them, and I am talking to someone like me: he is quiet and doesn't much like being talked at; he can't conceal how easily he gets bored.”