“I think you will agree that I am alive in every part of this book; turn back twenty, thirty, one hundred pages - I am back there. That is why I hate the story; characters are not snakes that they must shed their skins on every page - there can only be one action: what a man is. When you have understood this, you will be through with novels.” ThinkingMenWritingBookCharacterStoriesActionHateTurnsNovelAlivePagesUnderstoodHundredSkinsI HateTwentiesAgreeThirtyShedSnakesI Am Alive Author:Kenneth Patchen
“I am obsessed with story. I had a late awakening in life. In college was the first time that I understood what you could do with a story and what a good novel is - literary value and subtext and irony and everything.” FirstsStoriesValuesNovelCollegeLateUnderstoodFirst TimeAwakeningIronyObsessedSubtext Author:Shane Carruth
“Madame Bovary is one my favorite novels. Emma Bovary will always be an enigma, but as the years pass, I feel that I understand her better. She has a violent nostalgia, almost an infantile nostalgia, to be understood by the men surrounding her. I like her relentless fight for independence, her rebellion against the mediocre, and her quest for the sublime, even if she burns her wigs in the process. I like that Flaubert never judges her morally for her self-destructiveness, for her desperate attempt to satisfy her wildest desires and appetites.” IfsMenFeelsYearsSelfDesireFightingProcessNovelHe ManJudgingUnderstoodIndependenceMy FavoriteNostalgiaViolentDesperateRebellionAppetiteQuestsSublimeMediocreRelentlessLike HerEmmaWigsEnigmaInfantileDestructiveness Author:Sophie Barthes