# Quote — John Banville, The Untouchable

> Diderot said that what we do is, we erect a statue in our own image inside ourselves—idealised, you know, but still recognisable—and then spend our lives engages in the effort to make ourselves into its likeness.

- Author: [John Banville](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville.md)
- Book: [The Untouchable](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Banville#The_Untouchable_(1997)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/diderot-said-that

## More from this book

> Man is only lovable in the multitude, and at a good distance.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/man-is-only.md)

> I suspect that significant first encounters only take on their aura of significance in retrospect.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/i-suspect-that.md)

> I was pondering the question, which I have pondered before, of whether such great revelatory moments really so occur, or if it is only that, out of need, our lives so lacking in drama, we invest past events with a significance they do not warrant.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-banville/the-untouchable/i-was-pondering.md)