Notebook "Howard Phillips Lovecraft serves as example to all who wish to learn how to fail in life and eventually succeed in their work. And even on that score, results are not guaranteed. Practicing a policy of complete non-engagement via-a-vis vital realities carries with it the risk of plunging into deepest apathy; one might no longer even write -- and that is exactly what happened to him, several times. Another danger is suicide, which one must learn to negotiate with; thus over the course of several years, Lovecraft always kept a small bottle of cyanide at hand. This can come to be very useful, so long as one can hold out. He did, but not without difficulty." -- Michel Houellebecq, H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life https://amzn.to/2o5taUJ #literature #writing #quotable #minds