The Only Alien on the Planet

Listen very hard and follow your heart. Your heart is good. It's your brain that gets you into trouble.

Every person defines reality in his own way. And every person figures that anybody who doesn't agree with him has got to be irrational.

I'm convinced that each human being more or less builds his own reality. You are what you believe you are. We make images in our minds of what will be---based on what we believe or want, what we're afraid of---

There comes a time, when you have to realize that you're not responsible for the whole world.

People allow themselves to be defeated

I think that things happen, and if you don't do something to change them, they just keep happening. Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's a nightmare.

...it depends on whose reality you're using for rules. You just have to remember that, and then you can see that nothing should be taken absolutely seriously. Personally, I always like to use my own reality as a standard.

So every person sets up his own rules, and then uses them to judge everybody else. You just have to realize that.There is no real normal. You have to just decide what you believe. And stay open to new ideas. For the time being I am using my own concept of reality as a guide." Ginny to Caulder and Micheal

The only power he has is what you give him." Ginny to Michael

What the mind believes the body will often make reality." Dr. Woodhouse to Caulder and Ginny.

This is home. This is where we are. This is the place we store our love. You just have to be content to be in your own skin, that's all". Charlie to Ginny

I forgot all about him and lost myself in the story.That's what I love about films and good books- you can climb right into them and be there. I just hate it when I'm doing that, and then somebody butts in and messes with my concentration.

You are what you believe you are.We make images in our minds of what will be based on what we believe or want, what we're afraid of." Dr. Woodhouse to Caulder and Ginny

Never, never make the mistake of thinking you’re the only alien on the planet. But that’s exactly the way I did feel – different desks, different schedule, halls and halls and halls that all looked the same to me. Everybody else knew their way around. I might as well have been a million light years from home. And lost.

The picture made me heartsick. What could it be like, shut up inside with everything you feel – never having the relief of expression, never sharing anything or releasing anything or trying it out on somebody else? Never asking questions? Only yourself to talk to. Only yourself to listen. Never to be understood. Understood. Not to be loved for what you are. Never to be known.

Always," he said. "Whatever I become. Wherever I go. There will always—be this.

Education is one of the Grand Christianson Obsessions. They’ve been whole years my mother’s kept us home for intensive private study. As a result of that, Paul will perform the first brain transplant, James will someday build a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean, Charlie – who is an actual musical genius – will probably end up writing the Great American Symphony, and I – I know a little bit about a lot of things. I can tell you the chemical composition of the stuff your stick in your hair; how long it would take you, at just under the speed of light, to get to Alpha Centauri – and how old your body would be when you finally got there; the middle name of the third president of the United States; the amount of the present budget deficit; the author of the Brothers Karamazov, and how many feet there are in a line of trochaic heptameter. The Little Girl Who Had to Know Why, Paul used to call me. But even my mother couldn’t reconcile me and math.

So naturally, I caught myself making up personalities for him - you know, the way you do with pets and cute boys and famous people. What’s that called? Anthropomorphism. You do it so that you feel like you can relate personally to whatever it is – your dog, or God or whatever. You do that so you can care about things, and so that life at least appears to make sense. And maybe you do it so you can feel like something cares about you. The dangerous thing about doing that, Paul told me one time, is what you end up caring about isn’t necessarily what’s really there – just what you’ve decided is there. Which may be very far from the truth. So you could very easily end up depending on a lie. Or a dream.

The thing about me is – essentially, I’m a coward. I am. I can’t stand weird stuff, anything that’s not normal. […] I’m a coward, and I’ve faced it, and I’ve learn to accept it. And I’m okay with that, as long as nothing happens so I have to start feeling ashamed about it, or guilty. I don’t think my parents know this about me. […] But the other thing is, I just hate it when people are disappointed in me.

Hally: – […] See, a smart woman tends to act on your typical eighteen-year-old male like instant kryptonite. But, not to worry – mother tells me something mystical happens at graduation and suddenly male people who never pulled a grade above a C in their lives automatically become smarter than anything that wears a skirt. Maybe after that happens, we can date who we want.

I'm not stupid. I never was. I always observed. I do know things. Not about interaction. But about goodness. And honor. I know what I respect.

I don't suppose he could be dead now?" "He might as well be. At least, he is no longer immortal.

An hour and a half, and this will be over." Great. It only took seventeen seconds for an earthquake to flatten San Francisco.

I have read - of every human condition. Geothe, Dostoevsky, Hugo, Montaigne. I thought - But. Only theory... observation. Not understanding.

The problem [...] I am pulled to pieces. You ask. They ask. Everybody wants access. Why? It costs me. I can't answer.

If I had been sure that what I'd done was immoral, I'd have told them about it and felt better. But what I'd done was only strange, so I had no such relief.

Look at me," I said fiercely. And he did. He looked me straight in the face, his eyes full of shock or fear or anger - something. They were alive inside. He was alive inside.

Sometimes I get carried away. But I think maybe sometimes you run when it looks like it's going to cost you anything.

Smitty Tibbs had just graduated from Interesting Problem to full, frighteningly real, Human Being.

But he was moving through a world that didn't seem to admit the existence of any other human being.