Into the Wild discussion

In spite of our American Literature Class I would like to start off the discussion with this quote, "You can never be a failure if you have friends." And my question is why is it that so many Author's we have discussed in our class have had at least one intagral relationship with a character in which they see themselves? Is it that they are internal people with creative imaginations or is there more to it than that? Do they not have friends and find it amusing that they can create and recreate a miror image of themselves in a completely different context. It is something I have been thinking about for a while now and I was wondering all of your thoughts...