Let’s take a look now at aphorisms, since both of us have written in this form. What does this literary form offer a contemporary writer?

I suppose the aphorism offers writers what it always has: a wonderful vehicle for expressing reflections, insights, opinions, and so on. The directness and economy of aphorisms often gives them a force that is practically unattainable in other genres. I don’t know whether the aphorism is particularly suited to the early 21st century, but it certainly lends itself to any time, like the present, in which disenchantment is pervasive.

It is interesting to note that few philosophers write aphorisms today, even though aphorisms can be very effective in conveying philosophical insights, and despite the fact that a number of great philosophers are accomplished aphorists. One reason why contemporary philosophers distrust the aphorism has to do with their insistence that everything be spelt out in detail, and that ideas be presented as plainly and unambiguously as possible.

The other main reason, I think, is that aphoristic thoughts resist neat systematization. This is most obvious in texts that try to impose a kind of order on the thoughts of an aphoristic writer or thinker, and inevitably end up distorting these thoughts. In any case, the fact that aphorisms are in this sense somewhat intractable also seems to account for the lack of interest in the genre among contemporary philosophers.

I’ve been jotting down random ideas and reflections in notebooks since I was in college. Even some of the earliest jottings were, as I recall, attempts at something like aphorisms. One of the earliest inspirations for writing aphorisms, and fragments in general, was Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse, which I came across by chance as a freshman in college. Slightly later in college I read Nietzsche for the first time, and it was through his writing that I really began to appreciate the force, and what you might call efficacy, of a well-wrought aphorism.

I first learned about Cioran more than twenty years ago after reading a review of one of his works in a collection of essays and reviews by a leading book critic. (It was probably a review of A Short History of Decay.) I found the review’s description of Cioran’s book intriguing, partly, as I recall, because the reviewer tried to situate Cioran within the tradition of French existentialist thought. Anyway, I then sought out Cioran’s works at the university library and what I found was for me a major intellectual discovery. In fact, I was “hooked” the moment I opened The Trouble With Being Born, which was the first of his books that I read (and is one of his works that contains nothing but aphorisms and short fragments).

I find it difficult to describe exactly what kind of impact Cioran’s work has had on my own attempts at writing aphorisms. His work has, without question, set a standard for my own efforts, and I know that his tone has clearly influenced my writing. But beyond these rather obvious points I don’t really know how to go about characterizing his influence, which in some ways has surely been immense.