Nothing is more punitive than to give a disease a meaning - that meaning being invariably a moralistic one. - Susan Sontag

The function of writing is to explode one’s subject — transform it into something else. (Writing is a series of transformations).

To me, literature is a calling, even a kind of salvation. It connects me with an enterprise that is over 2,000 years old. What do we have from the past? Art and thought. That’s what lasts. That’s what continues to feed people and give them an idea of something better.

I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.