…the ritual that it takes to write. It may look to
outsiders like the life of freedom—not on a schedule, in command of yourself,
singled out for glory, the choice apparently to write about anything. But once
one’s writing, it’s all limits. Bound to a subject. Bound to make a sense of
it. Bound to make a book of it. If you want to be reminded of your limitations
virtually every moment, there’s no better occupation to choose. Your memory,
your diction your intelligence, your sympathies, your observations, your
sensations, your understanding—never enough. You can find out more about what’s
missing in you than you really want to know. All of you an enclosure to keep
trying to break out of. And all the obligations more ferocious for being
self-imposed. (Philip Roth, The Anatomy Lesson, 1983)