" Maybe, despite ideology, politics, and history, a genuine catastrophe is always personal bathos at the core. Life can’t be impugned for any failure to trivialize people. You have to take your hat off to life for the techniques at its disposal to strip a man of his significance and empty him totally of his pride. "

― Philip Roth , I Married a Communist (Complete Nathan Zuckerman #7/The American Trilogy, #2)