In America most of us—not readers alone, but even writers—are still afraid of any literature which is not a glorification of everything American, a glorification of our faults as well as our virtues.
“The centuries have grown heavy and weigh upon the moment. We are more corrupt than all the ages, more decomposed than all the empires. Our exhaustion interprets history, our breathlessness makes us hear the death rattle of nations… the curtain of the universe is moth-eaten, and through its holes we see nothing, now, but masks and ghosts…”
Emil Cioran