And yet sometimes it seems to me I am there, among the incriminated scenes, tottering under the attributes peculiar to the lords of creation ... Yes, more than once I almost took myself for the other, all but suffered after his fashion, the space of an instant.

drill one hole after another into [language] until that which lurks behind, be it something or nothing, starts seeping through – I cannot imagine a higher goal for today’s writer.

[Y]ou cannot mention everything in its proper place, you must choose, between the things not worth mentioning and those and those even less so.

James Joyce: His writing is not about something. It is the thing itself.

Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence.

I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.

I did not want to write, but I had to resign myself to it in the end.

My dear Tom, Delighted to get your letter. Do write again. This life is terrible and I don't understand how it can be endured.