Youth to me was a perpetual quest, but I find the maturing ones of today incurious of any higher adventures than are afforded by cocktail bars and tennis courts. I remember how I was attracted to the literary portrayals of certain characters whom I felt must exist in real life, and whom I longed to meet. Was Zanoni a mere creature of the quill of Bulwer Lytton? Did not his prototype exist somewhere in unrecorded history, if not in the author's own experience?

-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 3: Encounter With Destiny > # 130