He moves, sitting nearer Victor, his enthusiasm flowing. It all happens so gradually. And of course the time comes when you realize that you haven t merely been specializing in something -something has been specializing in you. You become a kind of instrument, an instrument that cuts money out of people, or fame out of the world. And it finally makes you stupid.
Power can do that.
You get to think that because you can frighten people they love you. Even that you love them. One night I found myself in the middle of my living room, dead drunk with a knife in my hand, getting ready to kill my wife. You get to see the terror -not the screaming kind, but the slow, daily fear you call ambition, and cautiousness, and piling up the money. And really, what I wanted to tell you for some time now -is that you helped me to understand that in myself.