Clara Bow and Augie March on Authenticity

Clara Bow, the "It Girl"

In the 1927 silent film, IT, an author* who has written a book entitled IT is asked how she would define what “IT” is. She answers: 

"Self-confidence and indifference as to whether you are pleasing or not — and something in you that gives the impression that you are not all cold. That's 'IT’!'"

Saul Bellow

In Saul Bellow’s 1953 novel, The Adventures of Augie March, the title character says of himself: 

“I touched all sides, and nobody knew where I belonged. I had no good idea of that myself.” 

* The person playing the author in the film It is Elinor Glyn, the author who actually wrote the novel It, on which the film is based.