It is the corpse of the bourgeoisie that separates us. With us, it is that class that is the carrier of the chromosome of banality.

America is the original version of modernity. We are the dubbed or subtitled version. America ducks the question of origins; it cultivates no origin or mythical authenticity; it has no past and no founding truth. Having known no primitive accumulation of time, it lives in a perpetual present.

History that repeats itself turns to farce. Farce that repeats itself turns to history.

The great person is ahead of their time, the smart make something out of it, and the blockhead, sets themselves against it.

We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.

If we consider the superiority of the human species, the size of its brain, its powers of thinking, language and organization, we can say this: were there the slightest possibility that another rival or superior species might appear, on earth or elsewhere, man would use every means at his disposal to destroy it.

It is a world completely rotten with wealth, power, senility, indifference, puritanism and mental hygiene, poverty and waste, technological futility and aimless violence, and yet I cannot help but feel it has about it something of the dawning of the universe. Perhaps because the entire world continues to dream of New York, even as New York dominates and exploits it.