'What I mean by alive - not to shrink from what is most difficult: to change one's image of oneself. "Words," said Panthous in the days when he was still my fencing partner. "Nothing but words, Cassandra. A human being changes nothing, so why himself of all things, why of all things his image of himself?"'
Wolf, Christa,
1984. Conditions of a narrative.
in Wolf, Christa, 1984. Cassandra: a
novel and four essays.
Translated from the German by Jan van Heurck. London: Virago, p.21
