Book

"In biographies of great people, writers - well not writers, hog-nosed rooters - serve up outrageous indiscretions. The lowly devour these scribblings, because they are only interested in where this human phenomenon came from and how it became what it is. They look for causes in externalities, and think that under the same circumstances they could have become one. As if a hen could become an eagle, if by chance she were to hatch from her egg on the top of a cliff."