He had decided

He had decided a long ago that no Situation had any objective reality: it only existed in the minds of those who happened to be in on it at any specific moment. Since these several minds tended to form a sum total or complex more mongrel than homogenous, The Situation must necessarily appear to a single observer much like diagram in four dimensions to an eye conditioned to seeing its world in only three.

Hence the success or failure of any diplomatic issue must vary directly with the degree of rapport achieved by the team confronting it.

-Thomas Pynchon, in the novel V (p. 174, Bantam Windstone paperback edition, 1963)