As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow. ↗
There's this common perception that having a famous last name is all you need. A surname may get you a meeting, but if there's no talent you won't get the part. ↗
I kept thinking I was always going to meet the right man, but I never did. Kept waiting for this knight in shining armour. 'When's he coming? He's taking a long time, isn't he?' ↗
Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything. ↗
Only recently, during the nineteenth century, and then only in Europe, do we meet forms of the state which have been created by a deliberate national feeling. ↗