The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements.
Paul de ManThe bases for historical knowledge are not empirical facts but written texts, even if these texts masquerade in the guise of wars or revolutions.
Paul de ManLiterature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.
Paul de Man