"We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadnâ€™t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think weâ€™ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear."

-- Curtis Sittenfeld

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