Quote: Clarice Lispector

"Before the appearance of the mirror, the person didn't know his own face except reflected in the waters of a lake. After a certain point everyone is responsible for the face he has. I'll now look at mine. It is a naked face. And when I think that no other like it exists in the world, I get a happy shock. Nor will there ever be. Never is the impossible. I like never. I also like ever. What is there between never and ever that links them so indirectly and intimately?

"At the bottom of everything there is the hallelujah.

"This instant is. You who read me are."

--Copyright © Clarice Lispector, from Água Viva, newly translated by Stefan Tobler, with an introduction by Benjamin Moser, New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2012. All rights reserved.