Eroticism cannot be entirely revealed without poetry.

The power of death signifies that this real world can only have a neutral image of life, that life's intimacy does not reveal it's dazzling consumption until the moment it gives out.

The fact is, that what de Sade was trying to bring to the surface of the conscious mind was precisely the thing that revolted that mind . . . From the very first he set before the consciousness things which it could not tolerate.

Sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things.

A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.

I enjoyed the innocence of unhappiness and of helplessness; could I blame myself for a sin which attracted me, which flooded me with pleasure precisely to the extent it brought me to despair?

To place oneself in the position of God is painful: being God is equivalent to being tortured. For being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evils is unimaginable unless God willed them.