Always, after he was in bed, there were voices—indefinite, fading, enchanting—just outside his window, and before he fell asleep he would dream one of his favorite waking dreams, the one about becoming a great half-back, or the one about the Japanese invasion, when he was rewarded by being made the youngest general in the world. It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being. This, too, was quite characteristic of Amory. (查看原文)
He did not consider himself a “strong char’c’ter”, but relied on his facility (learn things sorta quick) and his superior mentality (read a lotta deep books). He was proud of the fact that he could never become a mechanical or scientific genius. From no other heights was he debarred. (查看原文)
Amory had rather a Puritan conscience. Not that he yielded to it—later in life he almost completely slew it—it made him consider himself a great deal worse than other boys… unscrupulousness… the desire to influence people in almost every way, even for evil… a certain coldness and lack of affection, amounting sometimes to cruelty… a shifting sense of honor… an unholy selfishness… a puzzled, furtive interest in everything concerning sex. (查看原文)
Amory plus Beatrice plus two years in Minneapolis—these had been his ingredients when he entered St. Regis’s. But the Minneapolis years were not a thick enough overlay to conceal the “Amory plus Beatrice”from the ferreting eyes of a boarding-school, so St. Regis’s had very painfully drilled Beatrice out of him, and begun to lay down new and more conventional planking on the fundamental Amory. (查看原文)
It puzzled him (the editor of the St. Regis Tattler) to see impressionable small boys imitating the very vanities that had not long ago been contemptible weaknesses. (查看原文)
“The Slicker”（amory和他朋友一起为slicker这种人下了一个定义）
1 Clever sense of social values
2 Dresses well. Pretends that dress is superficial—but knows that it isn’t.
3 Goes into such activities as he can shine in.
4 Gets to college and is, in a worldly way, successful.
5 Hair slicked. (查看原文)
