Kitsch evokes a future utopia looking back at a past that is selectively (mis)remembered, thereby helping to stabilize the present toward which kitsch is otherwise deeply anatagonistic.

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

The inadequacy of the purely purpose-oriented form is revealed for what it is-a monotonous, impoverished boring practicality.

Thinking no longer means anymore than checking at each moment whether one can indeed think.

He who matures early lives in anticipation.

The idea that after this war life will continue 'normally' or even that culture might be 'rebuilt' - as if the rebuilding of culture were not already its negation - is idiotic.

Everything about art has become problematic; its inner life, its relation to society, even its right to exist.