there is nothing bad to fear; once you have crossed that threshold, all is well. Another world, and you do not have to speak - Franz Kafka

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

There was once a community of scoundrels, that is to say, they were not scoundrels, but ordinary people.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.