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.

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.

Death 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 critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements.