… the writer is not the only author of his work. He is a kind of point of coagulation, a knot in the social and linguistic fabric. But it is the fact that he is a single point, as they say in mathematics, that makes a difference, and that difference is painful. Even while writing for others, the writer feels isolated. He speaks for others; not only does he address himself to others, but he also succeeds in saying what others would like to say. But this function makes him solitary. It is because one suffers more than others that one begins to write, in order to find a means of expressing that suffering. it is because one is at the centre that one is alone. And it is because one is at the centre that one is marginal.

Michel Butor, interviewed