Even the loveliest dream bears like a blemish its difference from reality, the awareness that what it grants is mere illusion.

For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live.

The sublime is only a step removed from the ridiculous.

In the end indignation over kitsch is anger at tis shameless revelling in the joy of imitation.

The human is indissolubly linked with imitation: a human being only becomes human at all by imitating other human beings.

People at the top are closing ranks so tightly that all possibility of subjective deviation has gone, and difference can be sought only in the more distinguished cut of an evening dress.

Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men.