He blunders about like an ape in an apiary, infuriating the inhabitants and missing all the sweetness! — Sheri S. Tepper

“I’ve met people like him.” Garth nodded sagely. “Men of customary inaction who can be spurred to sporadic excess. Such men often start ill-planned projects that they lack either energy to complete or the wit to abandon.”

“And all this time that I’ve worried over the state of my soul, I shouldn’t have bothered,” Genevieve said angrily.

I know you want me to believe all this, but it seems little different from the religious stories we learned in school, esoteric and relatively pointless.