“The psychotherapist—marriage counselor says that I abhor planning and seek risk because it’s the way I receive confirmation of my right to live. For me things must happen by chance, because I need to feel that I have passed some test. It’s as if I were a gambler. When Simone Weil says only the impersonal is holy, does she have this sort of thing in mind?”

Micahaels, Leonard. Time out of Mind: The Diaries of Leonard Michaels, 1961-1995