[...] He had wondered if everybody took the quality they had and treated it as the most important thing - used it as a basis for feeling superior to others.
Nate remembered something else: the belief that success was something that just happened to you, that you just did your thing, and if you were deserving, it was bestowed by the same invisible hand that ensured that the deli would have milk to drink and sandwiches to buy. Wouldn't that be nice? Nate…
Nate felt not only glad but vindicated, as if a long-running argument had finally been settled in his favor. His unpopularity, though persistent, had never seemed quite right. He was not and had never been a nervous, nebbishy sort; his interest in science fiction, never very intense, had peaked at …
[...] People instinctively wanted her approval. Between this authoritative air and her sunny good looks, Kristen was, in the world's crude judgment, a catch for Nate, several notches above him in the college social hierarchy. [...]
[...] The spring of his sophomore year, he began to read from feverish loneliness, a loneliness he began to fear would be permanent. After all, if someone like him, wasn't happy in college, where and when would he be happy? His disappointment and isolation made him bitter, and he judged the world…
