Arthur realized that when he argued with his boss, he wasn't two men talking; it was his boss’s scolding Arthur’s Child . No wonder he felt ten years old every Tuesday morning. The Dinner Party "Game"

The cool, data-processing center that sees the world as it actually is.

Arthur saw it clearly now. Linda didn't want a solution. Her wanted to prove that no one could help her, giving her the "payoff" of being uniquely misunderstood. Breaking the Script

Arthur sat in a corner, the light from a buzzing fluorescent bulb flickering over the pages. He had spent his life feeling like he was reading a script everyone else had memorized, while he was stuck improvising in a foreign language. The Revelation of the Three

Across the table, Linda was playing Linda: "I just can't find time to exercise." Guest: "Why don't you wake up thirty minutes earlier?" Linda: "Yes, but I'm already so tired in the mornings."

Arthur closed the book that night feeling a strange sense of freedom. He realized that most "games" were just desperate attempts to get "strokes"—the units of human recognition we all crave.

The heavy oak door of the community center library creaked open, admitting a gust of rain and a disheveled man named Arthur. He wasn't there for the classics; he was there for a survival guide. He found it wedged between a dusty psychology textbook and a manual on bridge: Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne.