“Anxiety about writing feels like: I am poor in words, ideas, and feelings, and when I sit down to write, this poverty will be revealed. It is another rule of the general rule about fear: fear has nothing to do with its object. (When I jump off a thirty-foot ledge into the sea, my experience bears no resemblance to what I so paralyzingly apprehended before making the jump.) It’s obvious to me that if I have a problem with words, ideas, or feelings, it will be due to their excess, not their lack.”
—Harry Mathews, 20 Lines A Day [Day 45]