For Mallarmé naming an object meant suppressing three-quarters of its poetic pleasure (which consists in the joy of guessing bit by bit - "le suggérer, voilà le rêve!").

Socrates ... did not write. It seems academically obvious that he perished because he did not publish!

I've always said that I learned the English I know through two sources -- Marvel Comics and Finnegans Wake.

A library's ideal function is to be a little bit like a bouquiniste's stall, a place for trouvailles.

True learning must not be content with ideas, which are, in fact, signs, but must discover things in their individual truth.

The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars.

For many years I have devoted articles and essays to newspapers, from the inside. So criticism of the newspapers was a topic that I practiced for a long time.