“What other reason might I have for writing this - ridiculous journal of an aging concierge - if the writing did not have something of the art of scything about it?  The lines gradually become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know. This painless birth, like an unsolicited proof, gives me untold pleasure, and with neither toil nor certainty but the joy of frank astonishment I follow the pen that is guiding and supporting me.”

 ― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Labels: books, literary quotes, Muriel Barbery, playing plans on repeat, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, writing process