"We believe in the importance of what we have just said or written, if for no other reason than that it is impossible to take back the sounds or erase the marks, but the temptation to be silent pervades our body, the fascination of silence, to be silent and immobile like the gods, watching and nothing more."
Jose Saramago:
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
"I haven't got an America I can go away to like you. Over here we've lost all sense of where we're going. If we draw any comparisons, it's with the past. And we've given up wanting anything, except perhaps to be children again. We're always talking about the first years, our own first years and the first years of our history."
Peter Handke:
Short Letter, Long Farewell
"His interest in her grew despite the things she said and he continued to find her very exciting. Had any other girl been so affected, he would have thought her intolerable. Faye' affectations, however, were so completely artificial that he found them charming. Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play. From in front, the stupid lines and grotesque situations would have made him squirm with annoyance, but because he saw the perspiring stagehands and the wires that held up the tawdry summerhouse with its tangle of paper flowers, he accepted everything and was anxious for it to succeed...While she often recognized a the falseness of an attitude, she persisted in it because she didn't know how to be simpler or more honest. She was an actress who learned from bad models in a bad school."
Nathaniel West:
The Day of the Locust
