Roth

"Let the others write the books. Leave the fate of literature in their good hands and relinquish life alone in your room. It isn’t life and it isn’t you. It’s ten talons clawing at twenty-six letters. Some animal carrying on in a zoo like that and you’d think it was horrifying. 'But surely they could hang a tire for him to swing on—at least bring in a little mate to roll around with him on the floor.' If you were to watch some certified madman groaning over a table in his little cell, observe him trying to make something sensible out of qwertyuiop, asdfghjkl, and zxcvbnm, see him engrossed to the exclusion of all else by three such nonsensical words, you’d be appalled, you’d clutch his keeper’s arm and ask, 'Is there nothing to be done? No anti-hallucinogen? No surgical procedure?' But before the keeper could even reply, 'Nothing—it’s hopeless,' the lunatic would be up on his feet, out of his mind, and shrieking at you through his bars: 'Stop this infernal interference! Stop this shouting in my ears! How do I complete my life’s great work with all these gaping visitors and their noise!'”

---"The Anatomy Lesson"