'A lady who writes, and whom I admire very much, wrote me that she had learned from Flaubert that it takes at least three activated sensuous strokes to make on object real; and she believes that this is connected with us having five senses. If you're deprived of any of them, you're in a bad way, but if you're deprived of more than two at once, you almost aren't present.'
Flannery O Connor, 'The Nature and Aim of Fiction' in Mystery & Manners, p.69.
