He talked, and listened, and tried to do the hardest thing of all.
He tried to understand.

His story wasn’t “I’ll never read,” it was “I have dyslexia, so I have to work harder to make everything happen — and I will.

Sometimes he tried too hard to make sense of the world, to figure out why people were bad to each other so often.

I was motivated to work hard because of the situation back home. I wanted to change the lives of my family members as well as mine, and the only way to achieve that was through hard work and determination,

I wonder if he has any plans or if he is just as desperate as I am?

He hated to leave, but he loved his work. He was a man, and men needed to work. More sexism! More masculine tunnel vision! More need for gender-sensitivity workshops!

I tried to be...not hard, but durable.

I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.

Fortunately, he was the sort of person who, when he demanded an explanation, listened to it.

Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

"He fixed his eyes on my fingers while I played to him, then said suddenly, "My God; I work at it till I sweat and yet get no success - while you, my friend, simply play at it!" "Yes," said I, "but I too had to work in order that I might be exempt from work now.

It was not smooth at all, and it was because of me, not because of Jim. Jim should have ****in' fired me several times. Jim was extraordinarily patient. I was a young guy who wanted to make his mark in the world, and if I was the co-director, by God why wasn't I attending more meetings and why didn't I get more say in things? I had a problem of self-esteem and it came through that way. It was difficult for Jim, not for me. It was frustrating for me, but that was an unhealthy frustration. It worked because Jim was patient.

As my pitch got underway, he made things difficult. Maybe it was for sport. Maybe he was having a bad day. But it was clear he wanted to take — and keep — control of the whole presentation. I didn’t realize this at the start, however,

Perhaps I should have been more persistent.