"Living is a pretty grim joke, but a joke just the same. The entire function of man is to survive. Not for 'what' but just to survive. I turned the thing up so it's up to me to survive in a big way. Personal immortality is only to be gained through the printed word, barred note or painted canvas or hard granite. Foolishly perhaps, but determined nonetheless, I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form even if all the books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned. Things which stand too consistently in my way make me nervous. It's a pretty big job. In a hundred years Roosevelt will have been forgotten, which gives some idea of the magnitude of my attempt."

L. Ron Hubbard (later, founder of the cult of Scientology) just after having written 'Excalibur', August 1938.