Incidents in the Night Quotes

“What makes books quintessentially what they are is the promise that hides in their pages. The sense that we can metaphorically -- or even, with holy books, for "real" -- escape death through them, as authors and as readers. Even if they don't believe that books will really save them from death, writers still hold tight to the belief of living on after our deaths if their books are still read. What we want ultimately as humans is not to be forgotten. Indeed, one of the best cases for fiction being experiential rather than a mimetic reproduction of the real, is this: we still think it can save us from something -- from being forgotten, from oblivion, from death.”
― Brian Evenson, Incidents in the Night: Volume 1