Everything Can Change, But Not

The Sea Where Living Creatures Were At One Time Immersed Is Now Enclosed Within Their Bodies.

Literature Remains Alive Only If We Set Ourselves Immeasurable Goals, Far Beyond All Hope Of Achievement. Only If Poets And Writers Set Themselves Tasks That No One Else Dares Imagine Will Literature Continue To Have A Function.

My Working Method Has More Often Than Not Involved The Subtraction Of Weight. I Have Tried To Remove Weight, Sometimes From People, Sometimes From Heavenly Bodies, Sometimes From Cities; Above All I Have Tried To Remove Weight From The Structure Of Stories And From Language. . . . Maybe I Was Only Then Becoming Aware Of The Weight, The Inertia, The Opacity Of The World--qualities That Stick To The Writing From The Start, Unless One Finds Some Way Of Evading Them.

At Times The Mirror Increases A Thing’s Value, At Times Denies It.

The Novels That Attract Me Most Are Those That Create An Illusion Of Transparency Around A Knot Of Human Relationships As Obscure, Cruel, And Perverse As Possible.