" furthermore: desperate readers are like the california gold mines. sooner or later they’re exhausted! why? it’s obvious! one can’t live one’s whole life in desperation. in the end the body rebels, the pain becomes unbearable, lucidity gushes out in great cold spurts. the desperate reader (and especially the desperate poetry reader, who is insufferable, believe me) ends up by turning away from books.

— roberto bolano, the savage detectives