I believe in the writer's mission. He receives it from the word, which carries its suffering and its hope within it. He questions the words, which question him. He accompanies the words, which accompany him. The initiative is shared, as if spontaneous.

Edmond Jabes

Categorized in : Believe Suffering Purpose

Through the ear, we shall enter the invisibility of things. by Edmond Jabes

Through the ear, we shall enter the invisibility of things.

invisibility ears

We do not truly speak except at a distance. There is no word not... by Edmond Jabes

We do not truly speak except at a distance. There is no word not severed.

numbness emptiness distance

It is very hard to live with silence. The real silence is death and this is terrible. To approach this silence, it is necessary to journey to the desert. You do not go to the desert to find identity, but to loses it, to lose your personality, to be anonymous. You make yourself void. You become silence. You become more silent than the silence around you. And then something extraordinary happens: you hear silence speak.

real journey death

One rose is enough for the dawn by Edmond Jabes

One rose is enough for the dawn

dawn rose beauty

WIDE, the margin between carte blanche and the white page. Nevertheless it is not in the margin that you can find me, but in the yet whiter one that separates the word-strewn sheet from the transparent, the written page from the one to be written in the infinite space where the eye turns back to the eye, and the hand to the pen, where all we write is erased, even as you write it. For the book imperceptibly takes shape within the book we will never finish. There is my desert.

reading writing book

Silence is no weakness of language. by Edmond Jabes

Silence is no weakness of language.

weakness language silence

Always in a foreign country, the poet uses poetry as an interpret... by Edmond Jabes

Always in a foreign country, the poet uses poetry as an interpreter.

poet use country

Ah, the sun will catch me, in my disturbing transparency. by Edmond Jabes

Ah, the sun will catch me, in my disturbing transparency.

dark sun forever

The soul has words as petals. by Edmond Jabes

The soul has words as petals.

petals soul

My hands are full when you give me your hand. by Edmond Jabes

My hands are full when you give me your hand.

give-me giving hands

For the writer, discovering the work he will write is both like a... by Edmond Jabes

For the writer, discovering the work he will write is both like a miracle

discovering miracle writing

To whom to speak when the other no longer is? by Edmond Jabes

To whom to speak when the other no longer is?

empty emptiness speak

As long as we are not chased from our words we have nothing to fear. As long as our utterances keep their sound we have a voice. As long as our words keep their sense we have a soul.

voice soul long

THE WRITER can get free of his writing only by using it, that is, by reading oneself. As if the aim of writing were to use what is already written as a launching pad for reading the writing to come. Moreover, what he has written is read in the process, hence constantly modified by his reading. The book is an unbearable totality. I write against a background of facets.

reading writing book

How could an argument soothe or settle a controversy when every word is a nest for a bird of doubt? (meaning of words as inferences)

nests doubt bird

It is not certainty which is creative, but the uncertainty we are... by Edmond Jabes

It is not certainty which is creative, but the uncertainty we are pledged to in our works.

creativity certainty creative

One wound is enough to feed the open wounds of the sky. by Edmond Jabes

One wound is enough to feed the open wounds of the sky.

wounds enough sky

Wound me . . . I can only feed on my humiliated blood. by Edmond Jabes

Wound me . . . I can only feed on my humiliated blood.

humiliated i-can blood

Only what touches us closely preoccupies us. We prepare in solitude to face it. (The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion)

solitude littles book

God, on the other side of my table, composes His book whose smoke envelops me: for the flame of my candle is His pen.

burning flames book