Incidental Inventions

I thought that when one writes, it makes no sense to be contained, to censor oneself, and as a result I wrote mostly—maybe only—about what I would have preferred to be silent about, resorting among other things to a vocabulary that I would never have dared to use in speaking.

I had to stop writing my diary and channel the desire to tell the truth—my most unutterable truths—into an invented story.

We always look at first times with excessive indulgence. Even if by their nature they’re founded on inexperience, and so as a rule are not very successful, we recall them with sympathy, with regret.

It’s why I said, that’s enough of first times. What we were at the beginning is only a vague patch of colour contemplated from the edge of what we have become.

I’m used to looking on my own for a story, characters, a logic, putting one word after another, often laboriously, eliminating a lot; what I find at the end—assuming that I find something—is surprising, especially to me.

For these pieces I rummaged through memory in search of small illustrative experiences; impulsively drew on convictions formed by books read many years ago, then cast off and recovered, thanks to other readings; pursued sudden intuitions inspired by that same need to write; came to abrupt conclusions because the space had been used up.