"The best thing to do is to loosen my grip on my pen and let it go wandering about until it finds an entrance. There must be one – everything depends on the circumstances, a rule applicable as much to literary style as to life. Each word tugs another one along, one idea another, and that is how books, governments and revolutions are made – some even say that is how Nature created her species."
"Dreams disdain fine lines and finishing touches on landscapes – they content themselves with thick but representative brushstrokes."
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Source: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.13, University of Texas Press
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