How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I mean, my boy over here is clearly the Primary Colin. There's no one like him. Colin, say 'unique' in as many languages as you can." Colin brought them forth quickly. This was a word he knew. "Um, único, unico, einzigartig, unique, уникáљнњiй, µoυακός, singularis, farid." Hassan was good at his job, no doubt—Colin felt a rush of affection toward him, and the recitation of the words caused something to wash over the omnipresent hole in his gut. (8.45)
How do we say impressive in all those languages? Colin doesn't just want to be unique, he even knows how to say it a bunch of different ways. This is an important word—and idea—to him; he wants to be a rock star and everybody to know it.
Quote #5
Colin backed away from the door then. It occurred to him that he'd never done anything else in his whole life. Anagramming; spitting back fact she'd learned in books; memorizing ninety-nine digits of an already known number; falling in love with the same nine letters over and over again: retyping and retyping and retyping and retyping. His only hope for originality was the Theorem. (9.93)
Poor Colin—we feel for him when he realizes that he's just a poser. He might know a bunch of languages and be able to pull up random factoids at a moment's notice, but he's not done anything that someone else did before him. That bothers him big time.
Quote #6
That's why people grow weary of listening to Dumpees obsess over their troubles: getting dumped is predictable, repetitive, and boring. They want to stay friends; they feel smothered; it's always them and it's never you; and afterward, you're devastated and they're relieved; it's over for them and just starting for you. And to Colin's mind, at least, there was a deeper repetition: each time, Katherines dumped him because they just didn't like him. They each came to precisely the same conclusion about him. (9.115)
Trust us: it's never fun getting dumped. But Colin takes it to a whole other level. He's not just down because he lost his honey—he's a goner because people don't like him. He's trying so hard to have his eureka moment that he can't do anything else.