Painting can feign reality without having seen it. Discourse combines signs which have referents, of course, but these referents can be and are most … - Roland Barthes

Language is neither reactionary nor progressive; it is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech.

Don’t bleach language, savour it instead. Stroke it gently or even groom it, but don’t “purify” it.

One day, quite some time ago, I happened on a photograph of Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jerome, taken in 1852. And I realized then, with an amazement I have not been able to lessen since: ‘I am looking at eyes that looked at the Emperor.’ Sometimes I would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even to understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), I forgot about it.