This fear of being misapprehended may in fact have some influence on stuttering itself. Alfred Kazin stopped stuttering badly as soon as he made a name (and voice) for himself publishing in august magazines. Samuel L. Jackson found he was miraculously fluent when he spoke as any character other than himself. Escape from one’s stutter means escape from misjudgment, which is to say from the expressions often writ too clearly in a listener’s face: The looks I’ve gotten when I start to stutter—eyebrows raised in surprise or else cocked in pity, pressed lips and sidelong glances of impatience—could, honestly, furnish albums. I tend to glance away when I’m stuck, not so much in chagrin as to avoid subjecting someone else, and especially a friend, to my own scrutinizing gaze: They shouldn’t have to be on camera in an awkward moment. I have stuttered nearly all my conscious life, but I still fight the urge to apologize every time it happens.