from Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road

from Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road:

“You felt that life was passing you by?”

“Sort of. I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at school when I was in sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occurred to them to do anything less than perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I’d suddenly know that I belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I’d been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in meantime had been a mistake; and they’d know it too. I’d be like the ugly duckling among the swans.”

“I think I know that feeling,” he said.

“I doubt it.” She didn’t look at him, and the little lines had appeared again around her mouth. “At least I hope you don’t, for your sake. It’s a thing I wouldn’t wish on anybody. It’s the most stupid, ruinous kind of self-deception there is, and it gets you into nothing but trouble.”"