Giovanni's Room

desire

• I did not yet know how I would face his eyes. Giovanni fast asleep beside me, heavy as a fallen rock.

  BALD-GR-RC-063

• I thought all men were like me — I thought I was like all other men. I was not unhappy then and I was not lonely.

  BALD-GR-RC-105

shame

• I approached Sue as though she were a job of work … it became a matter of my honor not to let this fact become too obvious.

  BALD-GR-RC-076

• My lips were cold. I felt nothing on my lips … when it awakened, I had moved out of it.

  GR-RC-099

self-and-identity

• The worst thing happened to me long ago and my life has been awful since that day. You are not going to leave me, are you?

  BALD-GR-RC-084

• The Americans have no sense of doom, none whatever. They do not recognize doom when they see it.

  BALD-GR-RC-110