From the biography Utopia Parkway by Deborah Solomon

'To sign and date a work is to acknowledge that it is finished and Cornell was wary of such acknowledgments ; he proffered to think he could return at any point to all that he started, that even the past was never really the past, to paraphrase Proust.


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Utopia-Parkway-Life-Joseph-Cornell/dp/0878466843/ref=sr_
1_29?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209918529&sr=1-29

A very thorough look into Cornell's life, from his birth to his death.