Each time I take up Girard, his simple style instantly agitates me and inspires in me a deep desire to write like him. What stupidity of mine, for sure. But inevitable, too. To learn as well as to write cannot but be mimetic.
Passion, in Stendhal, is the opposite of vanity. Fabrice del Dongo is the perfect example of the passionate person; he is distinguished by his emotional autonomy, by the spontaneity of his desires, by his absolute indifference to the opinion of Others. The passionate person draws the strength of his desire from within himself and not from others.
(Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, 19)
