Blanchot and the Salvation of Nothingness

Maurice Blanchot:

"The writer plunged into dread is himself painfully aware that art is not a ruinous operation; he is trying to lose himself (and to lose himself as a writer), and yet sees that by writing he increases the credit to humanity, and thus his own, since he is still a man; he gives art new hopes and riches that return to weigh him down; he transforms into forces of consolation the hopeless orders he receives; he saves with nothingness."

From The Gaze of Orpheus and Other Literary Essays

Discussed in Skilbeck, R, The Writer's Fugue, Newcastle: Postmistress Press