"<p></p> <p>Because people are completely unpredictable. Even if you've known a person for thirty years, you can't predict how they will behave in success or adversity. You know nothing of a man's character, his everyday habits, his intellect, his heart, his reflexes - he remains wonderful and mysterious, even if he is otherwise half-mad. He may answer calamity with a shriek and a shout of joy; success sometimes breaks him, depresses him. Sometimes, on quite inexplicable occasions, people may become angry; for example, they may have endured grief, humiliation, material, physical, or moral misfortune, but then in a moment they may murder, or thunder and howl because the tram does not come on time, or their shoes are tight. Well-balanced, temperate people respond in a very particular way to some roadside remark: as if you had touched a secret wound in their being. Some people can't bear the ringing of the telephone, others ask for a kadarka before they are led to the gallows. The animal, the stone, and the plant are more regular and more predictable, and the storm and the earthquake more reliable than a human. People are wonderful.</p>"