" The highest level of literary creation is when the characters in a novel possess life, in the mind of the writer, The writer is unable to control them and might not even be able to predict the next action they will take. We can only follow them in wonder to observe and record the minute details of their lives. Like a voyeur. That's how a classic is made. So literature, it turns out is a perverted endeavor. It was like that for Shakespeare and Balzac and Tolstoy at least. "

― Liu Cixin , The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)