"Really, writers are just people who like to speak when they are not speaking."

All over the world, in museums, things human beings have made are on display. And yet something essential is always missing. The thrill of the act-- what the artist felt while making. This is the essence of art and nowhere is it ever found or seen, it is so fleeting it can only be "captured" by the artist herself in the repetitive act of making, so that the artifacts on display are always disengaged from that private urge to continue, to fail better, as Beckett says. Mary Ruefle Bennington Commencement I linked to this before but just reread it and its such a gem.