Book: Oleanna
Quotes of Book: Oleanna
JOHN: I'll tell you a story about myself. Do you mind? I was raised to think myself stupid. That's what I want to tell you.
CAROL: What do you mean?
JOHN: Just what I said. I was brought up, and my earliest, and most persistent memories are of being told that I was stupid. "You have such intelligence. Why must you behave so stupidly?" Or, "Can't you understand? Can't you understand?" And I could not understand. I could not understand.
CAROL: What?
JOHN: The simplest problem. Was beyond me. It was a mystery.
CAROL: What was a mystery?
JOHN: How people learn. How I could learn. Which is what I've been speaking of in class. And of course, you can't hear it. Carol. Of course, you can't. {Pause} I used to speak of "real people," and wonder what the real people did. The real people. Who were they? They were the people other than myself. The good people. The capable people. The people who could do the things, I could not do: learn, study, retain ... all that garbage – which is what I have been talking of in class, and that's exactly what I have been talking of – If you are told ... Listen to this. If the young child is told, he cannot understand. Then he takes it as a description of himself. What am I? I am that which cannot understand. And I saw you out there, when we were speaking of the concepts of...
CAROL: I can't understand any of them.
JOHN: Well, then, that's my fault. That's not your fault. And that is not verbiage. That's what I firmly hold to be the truth. And I am sorry, and I owe you an apology. book-quote
