There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the division of labour which makes people into specialists. it was also his protest against their industriousness. Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. the flneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them.

Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.

In the convulsions of the commodity economy, we begin to recognize the monuments of the bourgeoisie as ruins even before they have crumbled.

Art teaches us to see into things. Folk art and kitsch allow us to see outward from within things.

By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring commonplace milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action.

Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.

Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them.