I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion of intellectual property in general and plagiarism in particular (“Something Borrowed: Should a Charge of Plagiarism Ruin your Life?” in What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures http://gladwell.com/something-borrowed/ ) when the ending of the essay, which consisted of the final quote of a playwright who had been accused of plagiarizing not only a psychiatrist who had written a book on serial killers, but even Gladwell’s own New Yorker article about the psychiatrist, brought me up short:
“It’s been horrible and bloody.” She began to cry. “I’m still composting what happened. It will be for a purpose… whatever that purpose is.”