"I know that the straightest way to come at my emotions is by the unlikeliest route. Not sincerity of emotion but sincerity of form will take me there. You see, I have to beware of shallowness, a cliche of response, not mind but everyone else's, is this how I really feel? How shall I know that these lines are my own, and not a borrowed text? How shall I know? By giving them a structure which formalises them, takes them out of the bath of self-regard. Of me but not me, my own made distant, separated out from me by patterns and shapes, forced to a distance by the language that will return it. Once I have found the right words I will never lose the emotion again."
Winterson, Jeanette.
