" A child can love a mother who has no capacity to love him in return, but in time, he realizes that he is pouring his affection not on fertile ground but on rock, where nothing can be grown. A child might then spend a life defined by settled anger or by self-pity. If the mother is not a monster, if she is instead emotionally disconnected and self-absorbed, and if she "

― Dean Koontz , The Husband