some of my colleagues have gone all humble; i consider that a mistake. there is a time for writers to be humble; this is their time to be arrogant. a member of a giggling and twitching intelligentsia? yes, no doubt i was one, perhaps am still. but it is better to giggle and twitch than to be a stock or a stone, and an intelligentsia, however decadent or bougeois, is something much finer than the trade union congress or the stock exchange or london society.

from the selected prose of louis macneice.

having girded my loins to return all library books to widener, i feel the unreasonable need to first type out all the quotes i've ever wanted, however slight, as if, once returned to the bowels of the library, i should never find the books again. also i'm dreadfully tired from writing and packing and moving, that i can't wring another original thought from my mind.