“Mark Twain, another American icon, is a great example of this. His fans loved him during his lifetime because he shared his constant imperfection and evolution, along with his changeless trademark wit. The comfortable, frizzy-haired, cigar-toting wisecracker in a white suit dates only from the very end of his life. The white suits in particular became a habit just four years before his death. So it wasn’t our posthumous, perfectly put-together image that Twain’s fans loved. It was a restless striver who was eloquent and honest about his responses to life.”