The Possessed

Don Quixote could only have been written by someone who really loved chivalric romances, really wanted his life to resemble them more closely, and understood just what it would cost

In any case, I stopped believing that “theory” had the power to ruin literature for anyone, or that it was possible to compromise something you loved by studying it.

Today this all strikes me as somehow typical of the way things happen, when you try to follow life. Events and places succeed one another like items on a shopping list. There may be interesting and moving experiences, but one thing is guaranteed: they won’t naturally assume the shape of a wonderful book