“Were I a writer, and dead, how I would love it if my life … were to reduce itself to a few details, a few preferences, a few inflections, let us say: to ‘biographemes’ whose distinction and mobility might go beyond any fate and come to touch … some future body.”
“Were I a writer, and dead, how I would love it if my life … were to reduce itself to a few details, a few preferences, a few inflections, let us say: to ‘biographemes’ whose distinction and mobility might go beyond any fate and come to touch … some future body.”
— Paul Valéry (Analects, tr. Gilbert)
— Paul Valéry (Analects, tr. Gilbert)
“It is in sickness that we are compelled to recognise that we do not live alone but are chained to a being from a different realm, from whom we are worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. [+]
“It is in sickness that we are compelled to recognise that we do not live alone but are chained to a being from a different realm, from whom we are worlds apart, who has no knowledge of us and by whom it is impossible to make ourselves understood: our body. [+]
— Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
— Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
— Clarice Lispector (interview, 1976)
— Clarice Lispector (interview, 1976)
— John Keats in a letter (1818)
— John Keats in a letter (1818)
(Musil, The Man without Qualities)
(Musil, The Man without Qualities)
— Robert Musil, MoE
— Robert Musil, MoE
We were surprised once, long ago; and now we can never be surprised again.”
— John Ashbery, “The Recital”
We were surprised once, long ago; and now we can never be surprised again.”
— John Ashbery, “The Recital”
(Beckett, Molloy)
(Beckett, Molloy)
(Beckett, Molloy)
(Beckett, Molloy)
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
— W. G. Sebald (interview, 1998)
— W. G. Sebald (interview, 1998)
— William Faulkner (UVA, March 9, 1957)
— William Faulkner (UVA, March 9, 1957)
(Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation)
(Blanchot, The Infinite Conversation)
I cannot tell how Eternity seems.
It sweeps around me like a sea…
— Emily Dickinson (letter, 1882)
I cannot tell how Eternity seems.
It sweeps around me like a sea…
— Emily Dickinson (letter, 1882)
(Gertrude Stein, “Two”)
(Gertrude Stein, “Two”)
“Passion means to forget oneself. But you do things in order to enrich yourselves. C’est ça. You haven’t the least notion how repulsively egoistic that is of you…”
— Clavdia to Hans Castorp (The Magic Mountain)
“Passion means to forget oneself. But you do things in order to enrich yourselves. C’est ça. You haven’t the least notion how repulsively egoistic that is of you…”
— Clavdia to Hans Castorp (The Magic Mountain)
J.H. Prynne, 1968
J.H. Prynne, 1968
Perhaps it’s time to return to these letters.
(twice abandoned)
Perhaps it’s time to return to these letters.
(twice abandoned)
— Duras, Emily L. (tr. Barbara Bray)
— Duras, Emily L. (tr. Barbara Bray)
— Beckett, Malone Dies
— Beckett, Malone Dies
— John Ashbery
full circle. 🙃
— Parcel Mroust
(it’s not a typo 🤭)
from Perec, Species of Spaces
— John Ashbery
full circle. 🙃
— Parcel Mroust
(it’s not a typo 🤭)
from Perec, Species of Spaces
— Parcel Mroust
(it’s not a typo 🤭)
from Perec, Species of Spaces