CLARA

I read this passage in This Side of Paradise yesterday and its a conversation I need to have.

"Oh don't stall please, Clara," Amory interrupted; "but do talk about me a little, won't you?"

"Surely, I'd adore to." She didn't smile.

"That's sweet of you. First answer some questions. Am I painfully conceited?"

"Well--no, you have tremendous vanity, but it'll amuse the people who notice its preponderance."

"I see."

"You're really humble at heart. You sink to the third hell of depression when you think you've been slighted. In fact, you haven't much self-respect."

"Center of target twice, Clara. How do you do it? You never let me say a word."

"Of course not-- I can never judge a man while he's talking, but I'm not through; the reason you have so little real self-confidence, even though you gravely announce to the occasional Philistine that you think you're a genius, is that you've attributed all sorts of atrocious faults to yourself and are trying to live up to them. For instance, you're always saying that you are a slave to highballs."

"But I am, potentially."

"And you say you're a weak character, that you've no will."

"Not a bit of will-- I'm a slave to my emotions, to my likes, to my hatred of boredom, to most of my desires---"

"You are not!" She brought one little fist down onto the other. "You're a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your imagination."