“In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.”

—  Don DeLillo, book The Names

Source: The Names (1982), Ch. 5

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Don DeLillo101
American novelist, playwright and essayist 1936

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