Over My Shoulder: Joanna Russ’ Picnic on Paradise posted by Clancy at CultureCat - over my shoulder 19 Dec 2006 7:22 pm
From Picnic on Paradise published 1968, which I scored in Knoxville at McKay Used Books for 75 cents (pp. 94-95):
He sighed. It was rather peaceful, actually.
"Look, dear," he said quietly, "I've done my best. But if you want me, myself, you'll have to do without; I've heard that too often. Do you think they don't want me out there? Sure they do! They want me to open up my" (she could not catch the word) "like a God damned" (or that one) "and show them everything that's inside, all my feelings, or what they call feelings. They talk about their complexities and their reactions and their impressions and their interactions and their patterns and their neuroses and their childhoods and their rebellions and their utterly unspeakable insides until I want to vomit. I have no insides. I will not have any. I certainly will not let anyone see any. I do things and I do them well; that's all. If you want that, you can have it. Otherwise, my love, I am simply not at home. Understood?"
