Água Viva

by Clarice Lispector

I am a little scared: scared of surrendering completely because the next instant is the unknown.

I know that my phrases are crude, I write them with too much love, and that love makes up for their faults, but too much love is bad for the work.

And every thing that occurs to me I note to pin it down. For I want to feel in my hands the quivering and lively nerve of the now and may that nerve resist me like a restless vein.

Particularly speaking to you in writing, I who got used to your being the audience, however distracted, of my voice.

I’m restless and harsh and hopeless. Though I have love inside myself. It’s just that I don’t know how to use love.