‘As to the doubts the author experienced while writing this book, they were characterized variously as suspicions, regrets and certainties. The phrase “known failure” was used most often in the early evening, generally muttered “under his breath,” a technical impossibility, since at the time of this writing spoken language has yet to occur without breath, or under it or on top of it, despite the efforts of the female Silentists to deploy “words without wind.” (The author concluded that for breath to occur without a word attached was a violation of what breath was for – namely and exclusively as a transportation vehicle for language , a small car meant to compete in the space normally reserved for birds and wind; thus breathing itself was considered the first language, and if the author breathed at all, he should always, at the least, be sure to layer a word into the breath, so as not to be wasteful with the vehicles he dispatched into the air, often choosing the word “help,” for its simplicity and accuracy and full-time relevance.)’
Ben Marcus, Notable American Women
