Something by Thomas Bernhard

Why I kept this quote from Thomas Bernhard I don't know, but I found it written in my hand in an old notebook when cleaning out a closet this morning:

The thinking man always finds himself in a gigantic orphanage in which people are continually proving to him that he has no parents.

Reading Bernhard, I thought it almost time to lie down in a quiet room and place a small, cool, damp towel over my eyes. Bernhard's a writer who often makes me feel this way; though I haven't read him in years I think his time has come again.

And so I did, lay down that is.

After my little rest, semi-refreshed, ready to resume whatever it was I was doing, I thought about what reading Bernhard had taught me: that a book should either be constructed out of one question after another or a record of continuous outrage.