Psychoanalysis can unravel some of the forms of madness; it remains a stranger to the sovereign enterprise of unreason. It can neither limit nor transcribe, nor most certainly explain, what is essential in this enterprise.

What I seek is a permanent opening of possibilities.

From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art.

Politics and the economy are not things that exist, or illusions, or ideologies. They are things that do not exist and yet which are inscribed in reality and fall under a regime of truth dividing the true and the false.

People will be surprised at the eagerness with which we went aboutpretending to rouse from its slumber a sexuality which every­thing-our discourses, our customs, our institutions, our regulations, our knowledges-was busy producing in the light of day and broadcasting to noisy accompaniment.

Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad.