This was the way we loved, until the night became a silent day. And as I lay there with her I could see how important physical love was, how necessary it was for us to be in each other’s arms, giving and taking. The universe was exploding, each particle away from the next, hurtling us into dark and lonely space, eternally tearing us away from each other---child out of the womb, friend away from friend, moving from each other, each through his own pathway toward the goal-box of solitary death.
But this was the counterweight, the act of binding and holding. As when men to keep from being swept overboard in the storm clutch at each other’s hands to resist being torn apart, so our bodies fused a link in the human chain that kept us from being swept into nothing.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” I said. “Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I’ve discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.
“When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Now I have no one. Oh, I know lots of people. Lots and lots of people. But I don’t have any real friends. Not like I used to have in the bakery. Not a friend in the world who means anything to me, and no one I mean anything to.” I discovered that my speech was becoming slurred, and there was a lightness in my head. “That can’t be right, can it?” I insisted. “I mean, what do you think? Do you think that’s . . . that’s right?”

“You’ve become cynical,” said Nemur. “That’s all this opportunity has meant to you. Your genius has destroyed your faith in the world and in your fellow men.”
“That’s not completely true,” I said softly. “But I’ve learned that intelligence alone doesn’t mean a damned thing. Here in your university, intelligence, education, knowledge, have all become great idols. But I know now there’s one thing you’ve all overlooked: intelligence and education that hasn’t been tempered by human affection isn’t worth a damn.”

I could see he was upset about the idea of my visiting Warren. As if I were ordering my coffin to sit in before I died. But then, I can't blame him because he doesn't realize that finding out who I really am-the meaning of my total existence involves knowing the possibilities of my future as well as my past, where I'm going as well as where I've been. Although we know the end of the maze holds death (and it is something I have not always known-not long ago the adolescent in me thought death could happen only to other people), I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what i am. I amnot only a thing, but also a way of being-one of many ways-and knowing the paths I have followed and theones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming.

你无法了解人体内渐渐发生变化、却又无法触及，无法控制的那种感觉，仿佛一切都从指间缓缓流逝，却无法阻止它发生。

智慧和教育如果没加入感情因素，就没什么了不起。

就某方面而言,我在情绪和心理方面,与每个人以及事事物物都脱节了。我在黑暗角落里一一这些是我以前唯一能安身的地方—穿进穿出想要找寻的,就是让自己在情绪和心理上能与别人互通,但另一方面又能保持心智上的自由。我必须成长,这对我而言具有很重大的意义。

现在,我已经了解要上大学受教育的重要理由之一——经由学习,去推翻生活中原本相信的事,去认知事情并不像表面的那样。

如果他们给他多一点时间，不要催他或赶他，他一定学得会，但是问题是没有人有时间。

人愈聪明问题愈多。

她说我是个很善良的人,以后大家都会知道。我问她为什么,她说别在意这个,没关系,万一发现别人不像我想的那么善良时不要难过。她说上帝给你的东西很少,你做的事却比有脑袋不用的人还多。我跟她说，我的朋友都很聪明，是好人，他们都很喜欢我，从没对我做过不好的事。她听完后，眼睛有点湿湿的，跑去化妆室。

她说他们没有权利让我便聪明,因为上帝如果想让我聪明,生出来的时候我就是聪明的。不然的话,那些关于亚当、夏娃和苹果诱惑、堕落的事要怎么说呢。或许尼玛教授和史特劳斯博士是想要改便这些他们没有权利改便的事。

Am I a genius? I don't think so. Not yet anyway. As Burt would put it, mocking the euphemisms of educational jargon, I'm exceptional-a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of gifted and deprived(which used to mean bright and retarded) and as soon as exceptional begins to mean anything to anyone they'll change it. Theidea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn't mean anything to anybody. Exceptional refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all of my life I’ve been exceptional.

May 20
She stared down at the bride and groom on the wedding cake she was decorating and I could see her lips barely move as she whispered: ‘It was evil when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. It was evil when they saw they was naked, and learned about lust and shame. And they was driven out of Paradise and the gates was closed to them. If not for that none of us would have to grow old and be sick and die.’

May 20
‘If you’d read your Bible, Charlie, you’d know that it’s not meant for man to know more than was given to him to know by the Lord in the first place. The fruit of that tree was forbidden to man. Charlie, if you done anything you wasn’t supposed to –you know, like with the devil or something –maybe it ain’t too late to get out of it. Maybe you could go back to being the good simple man you was before.’