Night of the night

“My bed is a small boat lost at sea; that sudden whistling is the wind in the sails. On every side the air is filled with the sound of furious klaxoning. I talk to myself to give myself cheer: there now, your skiff is holding its own, you are safe in your stone boat. Sleep in spite of the storm. Sleep in the storm. Sleep in your own courage, happy to be a man who is assailed by wind and wave." --Bachelard

About right, actually.

'It seems that we learn something about art when we experience what the word solitude is meant to designate. This word has been much abused. Still, what does the expression 'to be alone' signify? When is one alone? Asking this question should not simply lead us into melancholy reflections. Solitude as the world understands it is a hurt which requires no further comment here. We do not intend to evoke the artist's solitude either - that which is said to be necessary to him for the practice of art. When Rilke writes to the countess of Solms-Laubach (August 3, 1907), "For weeks, except for two short interruptions, I haven't pronounced a single word; my solitude has finally encircled me and I am inside my efforts just as the core is in the fruit," the solitude of which he speaks is not the essential solitude. It is concentration." -Blanchot

"Everyday language [la langage courant] calls a cat a cat, as if the living cat and its name were identical, as if it were not true that when we name the cat, we retain nothing of it but its absence, what it is not." -Blanchot