I say, old man, you're developing something of a persecution complex, I'm afraid— "That's easy, when you're persecuted." - Keith Laumer

Him and his pet dragon—
"More folklore, I take it?"
"Well, I never actually seen this dragon."
"Hmmm. Funny how nobody I've met has seen it, but they all believe in it."

I’m arguing with myself and I can’t tell who’s winning.

The last burst picked me up and threw me a thousand miles into an open grave and the mud showered down on me and a giant tombstone fell out of the sky to mark the place, but I didn’t care any more, because I was far away, in that place where the heroes and the cowards lie together with a fine impartiality, waiting for eternity to pass, slowly, like a procession of snails creeping across an endless desert toward a distant line of mountains. (p. 18)