QUOTE : True, most of the people he had known personally were pleasant people who were far from short either of money or good will -- people who would not hesitate to help someone in trouble if they could, or thought they could. By the same token, most of the fiction he had read had been about fantastically selfish, unwashed people without a grain of human kindness even toward themselves, who seemed to be distracted from prolonged acts of suicide only to strike out at the people around them. Between the two, he struck a rough sort of balance.