Since there is no one else to praise me, I will praise myself — will say that I have never tampered with a single tooth in my thought machine, such as it is. There are teeth missing, God knows — some I was born without, teeth that will never grow. And other teeth have been stripped by the clutchless shifts of history — But never have I willfully destroyed a tooth on a gear of my thinking machine. Never have I said to myself, ‘This fact I can do without.
