Only literature could reveal the process of breaking the law - without which the law would have no end - independently of the necessity to create order.

The emotional element which gives an obsessive value to communal existence is death.

The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility.

Eroticism differs from animal sexuality in that human sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboos. Desire in eroticism is the desire that triumphs over the taboo. It presupposes man in conflict with himself.

Extreme seductiveness is at the boundary of horror

If I want to realize totality in my consciousness, I have to relate myself to an immense, ludicrous, and painful convulsion of all of humanity.

The sacred demands the violation of what is normally the object of terrified respect.