Paul de Man
QuotationsDeath is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.
Fashion is like the ashes left behind by the uniquely shaped flames of the fire, the trace alone revealing that a fire actually took place.
The bases for historical knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in the guise of wars or revolutions.
Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.
Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.
The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements.
Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.
Literature . . . is condemned (or privileged) to be forever the most rigorous and, consequently, the most reliable of terms in which man names and transforms himself.
Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.
The writer’s language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.
The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an act with which it cannot coincide. As such, it both affirms and denies its own nature.
Memorable Quotations Store at Amazon
Paul de Man at Amazon
MemorableQuotations.com
Memorable Quotations:
Jewish Writers of the Past
Jewish Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Irish Writers of the Past
Irish Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Famous Teachers of the Past
Famous Teachers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Philosophers of Western Civilization
Philosophers of Western Civilization
Memorable Quotations:
American Women Writers of the Past
American Women Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
French Writers of the Past
French Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
English Writers of the Past
English Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Massachusetts Writers of the Past
Massachusetts Writers of the Past
Memorable Quotations:
Humorists, Wits, and Satirists of the Past
Humorists, Wits, and Satirists of the Past
A Saigon Party:
And Other Vietnam War Short Stories
And Other Vietnam War Short Stories
Memories Are Like Clouds
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators (A - H)
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators (I - P)
Memorable Quotations: Teachers and Educators (Q - Z)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (A - H)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (I - P)
Memorable Quotations: Humorists, Wits, Satirists (Q - Z)
Memorable Quotations: African-American Writers
Memorable Quotations: American Democrats
Memorable Quotations: American First Ladies
Memorable Quotations: American Presidents
Memorable Quotations: American Republicans
|