The ways of literary being

"As a final observation, I should like to add that if it is impossible today for anyone to feel innocent, if in whatever we do or say we can discover a hidden motive -that of a white man, or a male, or the possession of a certain income, or a member of a given economic system, or a sufferer of a certain neurosis -this should not induce in us either a universal sense of guilt or an attitude of universal accusation.

When we become aware of our disease or of our hidden motives, we have already begun to get the better of them. What matter is the way in which accept our motives and live through the ensuing crisis. This is the only chance we have of becoming different from the way we are- that is, the only way of starting to invent a new way of being." (Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature, p. 100)