Some merriment for the New Year from Th. Bernhard's Gargoyles:
Bernhard: "Whenever people talk they undercut one another. The art of conversation is the art of undercutting, and the art of the monologue is the most horrible kind of undercutting. I always think, the prince said, that my interlocutor is trying to push me down into his own abyss after I have just barely managed to escape from my own abyss. Your interlocutors try to push you into as many abysses as possible simulteously. All interlocutors are always mutually pushing one another into all abysses."
