Date: 1984

"In his mind's eye, a kind of time-lapse photography took place, revealing the thing as the biological equivalent of a machine gun, hideous in its perfection."

— Gibson, William (b. 1948)

Date: 1986

"For surely, with every day that passes, our memories grow less certain, as even a statue in marble is worn away by rain, till at last we can no longer tell what shape the sculptor's hand gave it."

— Coetzee, J. M. (b. 1940)

Date: 1992

"Even more important to David than the very natural worry that his wife and his son might grow fond of one another was the intoxicating feeling that he had a blank consciousness to work with, and it gave him great pleasure to knead this yielding clay with his artistic thumbs."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 1999

"But my mother told me that just the opposite was true. That the pictures in your mind were always more beautiful than what was in the world."

— Offill, Jenny (b. 1968)