... a play.

Mrs. Fulton: Show by your sympathy that you appreciate the nightmares of existence. Try, try not to smile; try not to say, in an offhand voice, "I imagine these things have always been much the same." I am sure they always have been the same, Augustus; that is why they are so dreadful.

—Nigel Dennis, August for the People, Act I.

... a novel.

I know precisely the quality of my work. I know that it is not very good but not very bad either, perhaps it is good, or good to medium, but at any rate it is incomparably better than most of what is produced today. But why should anybody in this country be interested in what I write? Or why should anybody anywhere be interested, for that matter?

—Gabriel Josipovici, Moo Pak, p. 62.

... a poem.

We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, "You are not true."

—Richard Wilbur, "Epistemology."