"One must first become a magician before one he can become a Kabbalist. As a Kabbalist, one works differently and more advantageously."

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The short story is not as restrictive as the sonnet, but, of all the literary forms, it is possibly the most single-minded. ...at the end there has to be the literary equivalent of the magician's puff of smoke, an outcome that is both startling and anticipated.

— Louis Menand