“ Who included me among the ranks of the human race? ”
Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
~ Joseph Brodsky
...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.
... Now to die of griefwould mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomersare unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
