" And thus it was she who first gave me the idea that people do not, as I had imagined, present themselves to us clearly and in fixity with their merits, their defects, their plans, their intentions in regard to ourselves (like a garden viewed through railings with all its flower beds on display), but, rather, as a shadow we can never penetrate, of which there can be no direct knowledge, about which we form countless beliefs based upon words and even actions, neither of which give us more than insufficient and in fact contradictory information, a shadow that we can alternately imagine, with equal justification, as masking the burning flames of hatred and of love. "

― Marcel Proust , The Guermantes Way