The Nature of Personalities

 In school we learn about all these events, historical trends, stuff like that. But what we don’t learn – and probably can’t ever know – is the true nature of personalities. I mean we can read biographies – and if we’re lucky, personal letters – but the real interplay between individuals, the chemistry of aggression and submissiveness, pride and shame, sexual attraction – we can’t ever know that. That’s why it was so shocking to the country when they proved that Thomas Jefferson had children by his black slave. Suddenly he was no longer a granite figure on Mount Rushmore. He was just like us, you know? Feet of clay. We tell ourselves that we know everyone is human, but then we act as if we expect something else.

Greg Iles: Turning Angel