As it defines itself, every society defines other societies. That definition almost always takes the form of a condemnation: the 'other' is the barbarian.

All of us, at some moment, have had a vision of our existence as something unique, untransferable and very precious. This revelation almost always takes place during adolescence.

Every society needs to examine itself in relation to other societies.

Poetry, whatever the manifest content of the poem, is always a violation of the rationalism and morality of bourgeois society.

The work of art is always unfaithful to its creator... Art lays at a higher level; it says something more, and almost always, it says something different from what the artist wanted to say.

Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.