“So many stories remain untold; so much that we have
to learn, and to experience, is still hidden from the world. To attend to these
stories is to slow our current hurtling, to calm the chaos, to return to what
makes us human. It is to find the past and the present restored, as well as the
possibility of the future. We can’t go on, we must go on: in this period of
trial and transition, those of us for whom the power of the word is paramount
must keep the flame alive. Nothing matters more.”—American novelist-essayist
Claire Messud, from
Kant's Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I
Write: An Autobiography in Essays (2020)
(Photo of Claire Messud taken at the 2009 Brooklyn Book
Festival, Sept. 13, 2009, by Nightscream.)
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