Montag Conforming Quotes

The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine percent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for the shore.

You can talk of things so much that they end up materializing in your life: simulation, seduction, reversibility, indifference. Gradually, life comes to resemble a montage of all these things, in a floating circulation of women, concepts, dreams and journeys. In this way, writing ends up preceding life, determining it. And life ends up conforming to a sign which was initially quite cavalier. This is no doubt why so many are afraid to write.