"There was a day when I was in fifth grade when I was walking down the treet with Sam Witten, who was the guy a little bit older who lived around the corner who I admired, who seemed more worldly. And I was trying to explain to him this problem I was having in thinking about how to talk to other people. And the problem was that… I was very aware that in different kinds of groups of people, I could talk to them in this way where they would open up to me and they would like me, but the person I was presenting them with was a very partial version of my self… And I couldn't figure out, I kept turning it over and over in my head. Which was the real self? The one I was presenting to him? Or the one I was presenting to the tougher kids? Or the one I was presenting to my parents?"
Feed interviews Ira Glass.
Glass is host and co-producer of This American Life, one of my favorite radio shows.