“Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences every thing twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.”

“Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.”

“When you have once seen the chaos, you must make some thing to set between yourself and that terrible sight; and so you make a mirror, thinking that it shall be reflected the reality of the world; but then you understand that the mirror reflects only appearances, and that reality is somewhere else, off behind the mirror; and then you remember that behind the mirror there is only the chaos.”

“Maybe language is kind, giving us these double meanings. Maybe it's trying to teach us a lesson, that we can always be two things at once.”

“I wish humans could live twice: once to write scholarly works, the second to dedicate to the public”

“Writing is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living.”