I'M NOT REALLY LIKE THIS, I'M PROBABLY PLIGHTLESS

"Perhaps they'd desired a lively take-charge type and I'd seemed dull, slow to get involved. It had started to worry me that if I wasn't careful my meekness could become a habit, a tic, something hardwired that my mannerisms would continue to express throughout my life regardless of my efforts - the way a drunk who, though on the wagon, still staggers and slurs like a drunk."
- A gate at the stairs, Lorrie Moore