All my life have been attracted by every kind of monomania, by people obsessed with one single idea. For the more a man limits himself, the nearer he is on the other hand to what is limitless; it is precisely those who are apparently aloof from the world who build for themselves a remarkable and thoroughly individual world in miniature, using their own special equipment, termite-like.

Stefan Zweig, The Royal Game, London, 1944, p. 29