“Anyway, Grandpa Irv used to do this thing where he’d give Max and me five bucks if we made a speech that convinced him of something. Anytime, anything.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: The protagonist’s audacious self-confidence and refusal to compromise his artistic vision—which was to say, himself—was a fascinating thing to survey.

Fred Rogers never forgot how powerless and disoriented he felt when he was young, and he made it his life’s work to help any children who were also on that hard road—which is to say, all of them.