“After I write, I have nothing to say,” she said in an interview in the bar of the Lutetia Hotel on the Left Bank. “The commentary afterwards is superfluous. I write. And that’s enough.” — Yasmina Reza. Excellent New York Times article and “interview.”

And I’m back to posting quotes. “Another thirst had come upon him: the thirst for women, for luxury, for everything that life in Paris implies.” — Flaubert, L’Éducation sentimentale.

“It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts. There must be delirious pride in the feeling that you are bringing the full weight of your ideas to bear on mankind. But for that you must have something to say.” [...]

What’s x? Nobody knows. They only have y. (But not really. We do though. (That’s what we think, at least.)) … Who’s we? We is z.

After four years of this: “How can you defend the concept of intentional fallacy? You need to be familiar with the author’s life and knowledgeable about the author’s intention to come to a complete interpretation of that author’s work.” You’re not a mind-reader. It’s called fiction for a reason. There’s no such thing as real [...]

Originally published for a nineteenth-century British literature course. Ignore the madness. In my short, but incredibly prosperous and famous existence, I have read Brontë’s Wuthering Heights many times—the last time I did so was about six months ago—and yes, that means I haven’t re-read it for the course. Whatever. Did you guys see the Academy [...]