" The infinite nature of the work, seen thus, is just the mind’s infiniteness. The mind wants to fulfill itself in a single work, instead of realizing itself in an infinity of works and in history’s ongoing movement. But Valéry was by no means a hero. He found it good to talk about everything, to write on everything: thus the scattered totality of the world distracted him from the unique and rigorous totality of the work, from which he amiably let himself be diverted. The etc. hid behind the diversity of thoughts and subjects. However, the work—the work of art, the literary work—is neither finished nor unfinished: it is. What it says is exclusively this: that it is—and nothing more. "

― Maurice Blanchot , The Space of Literature