The Death of the Moth

I think Montaigne's essays are quite key. They're dealing with things which we all know about or have some connection to. I've also been influenced by Virginia Woolf's essays. Her ability to put forward big ideas, but in extremely lucid, charming, effortless way. If you read something like The Death of the Moth, all sorts of things are packed in there. It's a wonderful jumping point to all kinds of big questions,. But so likely done, so artistically done. And if you go from that to a philosophical academic journal, it's humiliating for the philosophers.