"Are you the sort of people one should be kind to?" he asks. "Somehow you don't give that impression." Iris says, hurt, "What do you mean?" "I mean that there are some people, men and women, more often women, who give the impression of not requiering anything from anyone. Who seem impervious, detached. Like works of art that are simply there and don't require anyone to confirm thier worth." Joyce Carol Oates, in Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart, ed. Picador.