"A writer who writes, ''I am alone''... can be considered rather comical. It is comical for a man to recognize his solitude by addressing a reader and by using methods that prevent the individual from being alone. The word alone is just as general as the word bread. To pronounce it is to summon to oneself the presence of everything the word excludes."

Source : Maurice Blanchot, P. Adams Sitney (1981). “The gaze of Orpheus, and other literary essays”, Barrytown, N.Y. ; Station Hill Press

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