Thanks to the virus

“When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a
vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic
mechanism of a host cell.” (Dawkins 1976, The Selfish Gene, p. 192)

"This book owes its existence to an illness. In September 1995 I caught a nasty virus, and struggled to keep working until I was finally forced to give up and take to my bed. [...] Some two years after I first became ill I was well enough to work again [...] and to write this book. [...] I would like to thank the illness for making it possible." (Blackmore 1999, The Meme Machine, p. ix)