In the fields with which we are concerned, knowledge comes only in flashes. The text is the thunder rolling long afterward.

The power of a text when it is read is different from the power it has when it is copied out. Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.

All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one.

Living substance conquers the frenzy of destruction only in the ecstasy of procreation.

Each morning the day lies like a fresh shirt on our bed; this incomparably fine, incomparably tightly woven tissue of pure prediction fits us perfectly. The happiness of the next twenty-four hours depends on our ability, on waking, to pick it up.

The film is the first art form capable of demonstrating how matter plays tricks on man.

In the world's structure dream loosens individuality like a bad tooth.