I learned well how to read thoughts from facial expressions, how immediately  to identify with these thoughts, but this mimetic ability to empathize, this desire for otherness, also led to bouts of mental anguish and brought no relief, for I realized I could not be another person, could only appear to be someone else, and total identification  was  as impossible as fusing my own two halves and making my secret life public, or, conversely, as impossible as freezing myself from my own illusions and compulsions and becoming like other people who are usually called hale and hearty.

“I’m not being condescending. I’m being openly hateful.”