Henry Miller On Writing

I had to grow foul with knowledge, realize the futility of everything, smash everything, grow desperate, then humble, then sponge myself off the slate, as it were, in order to recover my authenticity. I had to arrive at the brink and then take a leap in the dark.

Max Frisch’s Questionnaire

I just started browsing the diaries (or the Sketchbook 1966-1971) by Swiss writer and architect Max Frisch. And the opening chapter is called “Questionnaire”. As in his diary Frisch was preoccupied by the questions of…

Joseph Brodsky on Boredom

I remember reading somewhere a hypothesis that people stopped killing witches because it became boring. You kill one, or see one of the killings, and what is there to be seen next time?