“Thus we find him on the threshold of his career: an aesthete and an individualist. He wanted not only to live apart from the crowd, to be true to himself – but also to be liked. He sought to be sincere, but at the same time sought to please by his sincerity, which inevitably became suspect. It was this conflict, this peculiar set of circumstances from which Gide sought to escape by becoming a writer.” — from a bio of Andre Gide