Grotto in the Bomarzo gardens, Italy

At this moment someone in Uzbekistan or in Zimbabwe is writing a book which reveals more about life on earth than one year of television or a ton of newspapers …The Scream by Munch or a story by Kafka predict more than a thousand futurologists, a chapter by Proust reveals more than a hundred analytical sessions, a page of Kawabata tells more about eroticism than 10 Kinsey reports. Poetry, fiction, imagination, it’s always about – as Marianne Moore has stated inimitably – imaginary gardens with real toads in them, and try catching those. — The Abduction of Europe (1993) – Cees Nooteboom