This. This is modernism.

My first introduction to modern literature was with Dr. Barbara Pell.

This morning, I was reading a post on the New York Times blog Paper Cuts, in which people were offering their favorite quintessential passages from literature, and I came across one by Eugene O’Neill. As I read, another voice took over—Dr. Pell’s. “This,” she said. “This is modernism.” In a precise, authoritative voice with just a slight falter:

“None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever.”

-Eugene O’Neill, “Long Day’s Journey into Night”