Quote 46
And this is because when people tell you what to do it is usually confusing and does not make sense.
For example, people often say "Be quiet," but they don't tell you how long to be quiet for. Or you see a sign which says KEEP OFF THE GRASS but it should say KEEP OFF THE GRASS AROUND THIS SIGN or KEEP OFF ALL THE GRASS IN THIS PARK because there is lots of grass you are allowed to walk on. (59.3-4)
We don't know about this one. Christopher's an unbelievably bright kid. Just as he's learned about skills like being polite and chatting, shouldn't he be able to infer what this kind of sign really indicates? We know he values exactitude, but this seems like an example of him just wanting to show how most people are, as he says, "stupid" (139.8).
Quote 47
I do not like strangers because I do not like people I have never met before. They are hard to understand. It is like being in France, which is where we went on holiday sometimes when mother was alive, to camp. (67.4)
What do you make of this comparison? Christopher writes that he finds strangers hard to understand. This makes sense, since the people around him know he has difficulty with body language and adjust their communication accordingly, while strangers will speak to him in ways he doesn't understand. But do you think it makes sense to compare this to people literally speaking in a foreign tongue? Do you buy it? Does this change the way you think of Christopher's disorder?
Quote 48
I didn't reply to this either because Mrs. Alexander was doing what is called chatting where people say things to each other which aren't questions and answers and aren't connected. (67.67)
It isn't difficult to connect Christopher's idea of conversation to math problems. In his mind, "chatting" would be like one person saying "two plus two" and another person responding "seventy-five," or "eighteen times thirty" and "six."