We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thrusting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity.

Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom?

In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life.

To work for delight and authentic festivity is barely distinguishable from preparing for a general insurrection

The history of our times calls to mind those Walt Disney characters who rush madly over the edge of a cliff without seeing it, so that the power of their imagination keeps them suspended in mid-air; but as soon as they look down and see where they are, they fall.

Purchasing power is a license to purchase power.

Where constraint breaks people, and mediation makes fools of them, the seduction of power is what makes them love their oppression. Because of it, people give up their real riches for a cause that mutilates them; for an appearance that reifies them; for roles that wrest them from authentic life; for a time whose passage defines and confines them.