They used to return and dream they had arrived

“Even though I die, the universe continues. That does not console me if I am anything other than the universe. If, however, the universe is, as it were, another body to my soul, my death ceases to have any more importance for me than that of a stranger. The same is true of my sufferings.”

Interviewer: “Are there devices one can use in improving one’s technique?”

“It is difficult to see ruins because we see always the ghost of a building standing behind them that tends to explain them. But we imagine it. We always see something lost that gives meaning to what remains. But we hallucinate it. However conscious we are of it, in gathering together remnants of frescoes and shreds of writings, we always commit the irresistible error of believing that what has survived disappearance is a faithful sample of all that has disappeared. But what can we infer from the remains that the chance event of a volcanic eruption has preserved by engulfing them?”