Nothing had ever obliged him to do anything. He had spent his childhood alone. He never joined any group. He never pursued a course of study. He never belonged to a crowd. The circumstances of his life were marked by that strange but rather common phenomenon – [perhaps, in fact, it’s true for all lives] – of being tailored to the image and likeness of his instincts, which tended towards inertia and withdrawal.


The Book of Disquiet