Instinct

"Whether or not I am a writer,' I wrote, 'I have—and this is both my curse and my virtue—cultivated the instinct of one, an aversion for the herd, without, in my unhappy case, the ability to harness and articulate that aversion' . . . 'For my heart will always be with the drunk, the poet, the prophet, the criminal, the painter, the lunatic, with all whose aims are insulated from the humdrum business of life . . ." —Frederick Exley, A Fan's Notes, 1968