Underachiever's Diary

"I am proud to be a disappointment to almost everybody. Lend me money, and I will never pay you back. Fall in love with me, and I will fail to acknowledge you. Save your compassion for someone who really needs it, I am well engaged, trying to be my own worst enemy. I would call this my manifesto, or autobiography, but that would mean I have an ideal audience in mind. Call it a diary."

Williams is a dedicated underachiever. He lives by the following principles:

- Rather than saying 'yes,yes' to life, the underachiever will say 'no, thank you'. If pressed, he will turn belligerent.
- The underachiever is mesanthropic by default. He uses negativity as his greatest weapon. He lives at a calculated distance from the mainstream, secretly longing to be included while voicing his contempt for those who play by the rules.
- Underachievers are not to be confused with those who do their best with whatever genetic leftovers they've been given. A true underachiever has been given the master key to opportunity's home office, and misplaced it.

'An Underachiever's Diary' is a hymn to the imperfect; in the character of William, Anastas has created a definitive antihero for the nineties.