Jan
22nd
Thu
22nd
But there was more to being an intellectual than a manner of speaking, more even than making the dean’s list every semester, or spending all your free time at museums and concerts and the kind of movies called “films.” There was learning not to be stricken dumb when you walked into a party full of older, certified intellectuals — and not to make the opposite mistake of talking your head off, saying one inane or outrageous thing after another in a hopeless effort to atone for whatever inane or outrageous thing you’d said two minutes before. And if you did make a fool of yourself at parties like that, you had to learn not to writhe in bed afterwards in an agony of chagrin. You had to be serious, but — this was the maddening paradox — you had to seem never to take anything very seriously.
—
Richard Yates, The Easter Parade
(via callmeicebox)
