School
“Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable.”
“I could people the hours with creations far more interesting… than my own sensations.”
“It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known.”
Family
“You, my creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, who owe me nothing?”
“No; from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery.”
Social life
“I found myself… strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversations I was a listener.”
“I… resolved… that for the present I would remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavouring to discover the motives which influenced their actions.”
“What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.”