Georges Bataille, The Inner Experience

"Thus we are nothing,neither you nor I, beside burning words which could pass from me to you, imprinted on a page:for I would only have lived in order to write them,and,if it is true they are addressed to you, you will live from having had the strength to hear them (In the same way,what do the two lovers, Tristan and Isolde, signify, if considered without their love, in a solitude which leaves them to some commonplace pursuit? Two pale beings,deprived of the marvellous;nothing counts but the love which tears them both apart)"

Selected by Anthony Druggan