“In college, reading all those Greek tragedies and listening to the lectures about them, I would think, rather blithely, 'Well, that tragic flaw thing is nicely symmetrical: whatever makes Oedipus heroic is also—' What did I know then? Nothing. I didn’t feel in my bones as I do now that what powers our drive assures our downfall, that our birth date is our death sentence. You’re fated to kill your dad and marry your mom, so they send you away. You live with your new mom and dad, find out about the curse, run off and kill your real dad, marry your real mom. It was a setup. You had to test it. Even though you knew it would cost you your eyes, you had to do it. You had to push ahead. You had to prove who you are.”