The miracle of persistent thought

Each month, we feature a column by one of the personalities who give us the pleasure of alternating between the two. In his column, writer Quentin Mouron explores a topical issue with his usual sharpness.

I have a precise morning routine, which I only change when I've had too much to drink the night before or wake up in a woman's arms. I get up. I open the shutters. I make myself coffee. I go into my office. I don't open the newspaper, or a novel, or my e-mail inbox, or the latest essay by a whiny old recluse, no: I open these books of light, furtive, serious, dense thoughts. Sometimes the work of a French moralist, sometimes the diary of Gide or Léautaud, more rarely that of Kafka or Renard. For the great mornings - because some mornings are more vast, more profound than others - I choose