Charlie Gordon

"The more intelligent you become, the more problems you'll have."

"I want to be smart but not if it means losing the friends I have now."

"It's funny how the same thing can be either beautiful or ugly depending on how you look at it."

"We create our own hell by our actions."

"I'm afraid of the dark and the nightmares that come."

"I cry because I'm happy and sad at the same time."

"Before the operation I had friends but now that I'm intelligent they're afraid of me."

"I want to become human, not just intelligent."

"Reading is opening doors to other worlds and other minds."

"I was happier before when I didn't know how much I didn't know."

"Algernon was my friend, my only real friend."

"I understand now why I was the way I was before, and I'm not angry about it."

"I want to leave something behind that proves I was here and I was someone."

"I'm not an animal or a laboratory specimen. I'm a human being."

"Maybe I'm not really intelligent. Maybe I'm just a freak."

"I keep telling myself I'm a person, but they treat me like a thing."

"I don't know what I am anymore—am I the old Charlie or the new one?"

"Algernon was more than just a mouse. He was my friend."

"They wanted to study intelligence, but they never understood what it means to be intelligent and alone."

"I realize that I have no real friends. That I had expected that gratitude and friendship would grow with my intellectual advancement, but it has worked out the opposite way."

"I was happy before. Before I knew."

"They celebrate my progress while ignoring my pain."

"Ignorance might be bliss, but it's also imprisonment."

"I see now that the experiment was never really about science. It was about power."

"The mouse understood something we never could—how to be content."

"I used to dream of being smart. Now I dream of being happy."

"The greatest tragedy is not failure, but success achieved at the cost of your soul."

"They told me I was extraordinary. But I felt so very, very alone."

"I wanted to save myself and couldn't. That's the most terrifying realization of all."

"Being smart doesn't make you better. It just makes you different."