LENORE: Suppose Gramma tells me really convincingly that all that really exists of my life is what can be said about it?
JAY: What the hell does that mean?
...
LENORE: Well see, it seems like it’s not really a life that’s told, not lived; it’s just that the living is the telling, that there’s nothing going on with me that isn’t either told or tellable, and if so, what’s the difference, why live at all?
JAY: I really don’t understand.
LENORE: Maybe it just makes no sense, Maybe it’s just completely irrational and dumb.
JAY: But obviously it bothers you.
LENORE: Pretty keen perception. If there’s nothing about me but what can be said about me, what separates me from this lady in this story Rick got who eats junk food and gains weight and squashes her child in her sleep? She’s exactly what’s said about her, right? Nothing more at all. And same with me, seems like. Gramma says she’s going to show me how a life is words and nothing else. Gramma says words can kill and create. Everything.
JAY: Sounds like Gramma is maybe half a bubble off plumb, to me.
LENORE: Well, just no. She’s not crazy and she’s sure not stupid. You should know that. And see, the thing is, if she can do all this to me with words, if she can make me feel this way, and perceive my life as screwed way up and not hung together, and question whether I’m really even me, if there is a me, crazy as that sounds, if she can do all that just by talking to me, with just words, then what does that say about words?
JAY: “…she said, using words.”
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From The Broom of the System.
He's basically useless.
