Art is the social antithesis of society, not directly deducible from it.

Thought as such… is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity.

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

Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died, can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.

Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology.

Anti-Semitism is the rumour about the Jews.

Death is imposed only on creatures, not their creations, and has therefore always appeared in art in a broken form: as allegory.