Chris J. Rice

The individual for all his importance, is not the main thing. The collective must precede him, because the collective is what creates language, culture, and the belief system. If the individual makes his contribution to the collective, he raises the level of the collective and that of himself, too. A creative person who does not have the power to do this will not in included in the nation’s memory.

—“The story of a life” by Aharon Appelefeld