Knight was largely reluctant to express any inkling of motives or insights gained through his experience, but he did offer that "solitude bestows an increase in something valuable, ...my perception. But...when I applied my increased perception to myself, I lost my identity. There was no audience, no one to perform for...To put it romantically, I was completely free." Finkel compared this observation to similar statements by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles de Foucauld, and Thomas Merton
