"<p>Because when you speak the truth - the simplest truth - you must know that immediately flames ignite around you: flames of passion, of accountability, of resentment. He who speaks the truth walks through a sea of fire, and he is right to put on a kind of asbestos garment, otherwise he will be instantly consumed by flames. This asbestos dress can never be anything other than an impassive and unquestioning calm, an inexorable calm of commandment and service: you can do nothing else, you must act as you are, even if you are burned. The writer is always slightly burned at the stake. Sometimes he is roasted with a slow fire, sometimes with a fiery flame. And like the fakirs who, in their obsessive faith and cold trance, walk barefoot, unwounded, unfeeling, through the fire-pit, the writer is protected from third-degree burns by nothing but his faith and obsession, which is quite cold, unrelenting and unforgiving, both to himself and to others. Put on this asbestos suit, speak the truth, walk through the flames.</p>"