BLAISE: I would do good by her and stand by her if she were to give herself to me in a total way. I'm not talking about sex, though that's part of it, but a very small part of what I really want her to give, which is her love to me. I would not mind if she were to give her love to many people in her life. I am not insecure in that way, but there is one part, one certain part of her love, which is only a feeling I cannot put into words, which I would never want to share. Not because I am ungenerous, but because that certain part of someone's love is the only thing in this this world you can truly call your own.

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CAT: You're very formal the way you talk.

BLAISE: I try to speak right.

CAT: No, I don't mean like that. I mean, you talk about yourself as if you were talking about another person, someone who's not here.

BLAISE: It's because I am another person, or I am in the process of becoming another person. I will soon not be at all the person I once was.

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CAT: How did you decide to become a new man?

BLAISE: Well, that's hard to say.

CAT: I'd like to know. I'd like you to tell me how you can decide a thing and then do it. How can you change?

BLAISE: Well...speaking in general terms here...I would say that a person might see something, or meet someone...beautiful...at least to him, and then an urge develops I would say...to do things for that person in appreciation of...that person's beauty...inner and outer, I mean.

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BLAISE: I am not a good man. I have never been. I sleep at night on a rotting mattress in a basement room that I sneak into through a hole in the screen. I lie there with the alley cats and the roaches and I can endure it, because I dream of you. I see your face. I see your face and feel I am worthy of possibilities - that I do not have to be this man. That I can shed this skin. I can! I am talking about a feeling. A feeling! The only thing in this world you can truly call your own. And if I have that, I can become a new man. I can! And if not...

(excerpts from "The Person I Once Was" by Cindy Lou Johnson)