“I had originally thought that a job at Starbucks might be below my abilities. But now i realized it might be beyond them. This job could be a areal challenge for me - mentally, emotionally, and physically.”

“I could stay with Mears-Starbuck for forty-seven years, I thought. I could live with a crazy girlfriend, get my left ear sliced off and maybe inherit Ferris' job when he retired.”

“I had to wrestle daily with both my inadequacy and my uncontrollable jealousy. I didn't want to kill her, but hoped someone else might do the job for me.”

“I felt free this time, knowing I had a job and that I wasn't going to be graded. I could simply experiment and create. The thought occurred to me that if I always lived under the certainty of God's provision instead of the certainty of Lexi's worry, I might always feel this free.”

“But they made me realize more than I ever had the rarity of true originality, and also the sort of alienation it might involve.”

“And then I was offered the job of a particle in factory physics. I was offered the job of an electron in an office atom. I was offered the job of a frequency for a radio station. People told me I could easily make it as a ray in a ray gun. What's the matter with you, don't you want to do well? I wanted to be a beach bum and work on my wave function. I have always loved the sea.”