You get trapped by stories. Though I've got this reputation for being out of control, it's not true, it just happens to be a more interesting story than the truth.
“I went to Concord, a young woman from the backwoods, firm in belief that Emerson was the first of living men. He was the modern Moses who had talked with God apart and could interpret Him to us.”
“Indifference may not wreck a man's life at any one turn, but it will destroy him with a kind of dry-rot in the long run.”