Een raar boek, schreef D.H. Lawrence over 'all things are possible' van Leo Shestov (1920). Maar ook mooi, wijs, origineel en vaak grappig. Ik las het, alweer, op aanraden van Ton Lathouwers' boek: meer dan een mens kan doen.
Een paar citaten van Shestov:
Literature deals with the most difficult and important problems of existence, and, therefore, litterateurs consider themselves the most important of people. A bank clerk, who is always handing money out, might just as well consider himself a millionaire.'
...and he who can weep can hope
19
When a man is young he writes because it seems to him he has discovered a new almighty truth which he must make haste to impart to forlorn mankind. Later, becoming more modest, he begins to doubt his truths: and then he writes to convince himself. A few more years go by, and he knows he was mistaken all round, so there is no need to convince himself. Nevertheless he continues to write, because he is not fit for any other work, and to be accounted a 'superfluous'man is so horrible.
