silence is the most priceless music of all. (p101) - Angelina Muñiz-Huberman

Thus it is that the man who invokes the dragon becomes his slave and has to feed the swollen belly and its insatiable appetite. Because the dragon promises him everything but demands everything of him.

The guts and the skin. The innocent and the prudish. Writing from the gut: about the unseen, the unknown, the absolute mystery. Not about the skin, the superficial, the visible. Do away with hot topics. Never what's expected, the facile, what sells. The prostituted.
Yes, to the individual, the unique, the shockingly rare. That terrifying thing: the other, not what is the same. (beginning of "The Guts and the Skin")

Who holds sway, the gods or man? I couldn't pray to the gods because I was going to be impure, but man, the man who slowly climbed the stairs, filled me to overflowing