Steven Millhauser Quotes

That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that faculty. Art, he said, was a controlled madness He said books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes.

purpose writing art human dream animals writer difference exercise write eyes madness brain afternoon made images books

All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.

life writing

I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.

writing language words

Others saw in the trend still another instance of a disturbing tendency in the American suburb: the longing for withdrawal, for self-enclosure, for expensive isolation.

america