That afternoon he told me that the difference between human beings and animals was that human beings were able to dream while awake. He said the purpose of books was to permit us to exercise that faculty. Art, he said, was a controlled madnessโฆ He said books weren't made of themes, which you could write essays about, but of images that inserted themselves into your brain and replaced what you were seeing with your eyes.
Steven MillhauserHis ambition was to insert his dreams into the world, and if they were the wrong dreams, then he would dream them in solitude.
Steven Millhauser