E.M. Cioran

The author, no less than the work, must dissimulate his identity, yield everything of himself except the essential, persevere in his enchantment and his solitude, a sovereign subservient to his words, their dazzled slave.

Were the universe to vanish, nothing would be lost, since language would immediately take its place.

Devouring biographies one after the next to be convinced of the futility of any undertaking, of any destiny