When Plato became a student of Socrates, he burnt a tragedy he had only just written: now that he lived to serve truth and goodness, literature seemed to him impossible to combine with these. Yet Claudio Magris speaks in defence of literature, which shows us the essence of the human experience. Philosophy and religion speak of truths, but only literature shows how those elevated ideals get mixed with the trivialities of earthly existence.

Nexus Lecture 1997: Soll man der Dichter aus dem Staat verbannen? Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Literatur