David Shields, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

"A great book allows me to leap over that wall: in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness, I feel human and unalone."

"To write only according to the rules laid down by masterpieces signifies that one is not a master but a pupil."

"Story seems to say that everything happens for a reason and I want to say, No, it doesn’t."

"Copies have been dethroned; the economic model built on them is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connections, and sharing are. Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer, and engage a work. Art is a conversation, not a patent office. The citation of sources belongs to the realms of journalism and scholarship, not art. Reality can’t be copyrighted."