1. “When did you get out of Yale?”
    “I didn’t,” he says. “I quit.”
    “Oh.”

    He describes it casually, without stooping to explain, but the authority of the act overwhelms me. If I had been an underclassman he would have become my hero, the rebel who, if I had only had the courage, I might have also become. Instead I did everything properly. I had good marks. I took care of my books. My clothes were right. Now, looking at him, I am convinced of all I missed. I am envious. Somehow his life seems more truthful than mine, stronger, even able to draw mine to it like the pull of a dark star.

    — James Salter (A Sport and a Pastime)
     
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