Like many young men in the South, he became overly subtle
and had trouble ruling out the possible. They are not like an
immigrant's son in Passaic who decides to become a dentist and
that is that. Southerners have trouble ruling out the possible.
What happens to a many to whom all things seem possible and
every course of action open? Nothing of course. Except war.
-- Walker Percy. The Last Gentleman (1966) p.16