quoting...

My sympathies are limited.
I can only be myself
and partly by nature,
partly by the circumstances of my life,
it is a partial self.
I am not a social person.
I cannot get drunk
and feel a great love for my fellowmen…
I have never even sung a hymn…
Though I Have been in love
a good many times,
I have never experienced
the bliss of requited love…
And so,
never having felt
the fundamental emotions
of normal men,
it is impossible
that my work
should have the intimacy,
the broad human touch
and the animal serenity
which the greatest writers
alone can give.

: W. Somerset Maugham