whentherewerebicycles:

“I do not share the attitude of those writers who claim for themselves divine privileges not granted to ordinary mortals, nor of those who beat their breasts and rend their clothes as they clamor for public pardon for having lived a life devoted to serving a useless vocation. Neither so godly, nor so contemptible. Awareness of our limitations does not imply impotence: literature, a form of action, is not invested with supernatural powers, but the writer may become something of a magician if he or she procures, through a literary work, the survival of significant experiences and individuals.

if what is written is read seriously and to some extent changes or nourishes the consciousness of the reader, a writer has justified his or her role in the process of change: with neither arrogance nor false humility, but with the recognition of being a small part of something vast. 

It seems to me appropriate that those who reject the word are the ones who cultivate monologues with their own shadows and with their endless labyrinths; but the word has significance for those of us who wish to celebrate and share the certainty that the human condition is not a cesspool. We seek interlocutors, not admirers; we offer dialogue, not spectacle. Our writing is informed by a desire to make contact, so that readers may become involved with words that came to us from them, and that return to them as hope and prophecy.

To claim that literature on its own is going to change reality would be an act of madness or arrogance. It seems to me no less foolish to deny that it can aid in making this change. The awareness of our limitations is undoubtedly an awareness of our reality. Amidst the fog of desperation and doubt, it is possible to face it and wrestle with it – with our limitations, but at the same time in opposition to them.”

– Eduardo Galeano, “In Defense of the Word”