Peel me another peach

“What is unthinkable?  Think it.  What is unutterable?  Utter it.  What cannot be spelled without a dash?  Fill in the dashes with doubts.  What is obscene?  Dream it.  In all its tones, in seamy detail, at indelicate length.  What is too horrible to contemplate?  Describe it.  With cool and indifferent interest.  As though peeling a peach.  You will not be the first, for the unthinkable has already been thought, the unutterable uttered innumerable times, God’s various names have been taken in vain, the obscene has been enjoyed, the horrible carried out.” — William H. Gass, “The Writer and Politics: A Litany,” from Tests of Time