The haiku reproduces the designating gesture of the child pointing at whatever it is (the haiku shows no partiality for the subject), merely saying: that!

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.

...language is never innocent.

Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.

I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me.

The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.

Man does not exist prior to language, either as a species or as an individual.

To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished.

The skyscraper establishes the block, the block creates the street, the street offers itself to man.

We know that the war against intelligence is always waged in the name of common sense.

The photographic image... is a message without a code.

It's not that I really cheat at golf. I play for my health and a low score makes me feel better.

I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want.

(I'm) the only one to take out half a brain, although you would think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat me to it.

Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

I cannot divine how it happens that the man who knows the least is the most argumentative.

No day-to-day mishaps or indignities can really compromise your sense of self after you've survived a deep tragedy.

CINCINNATI MORGUE, AN EQUAL-OPPORTUNITY SERVICE SINCE 1966.

The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models.

It's not the size of the ship; it's the size of the waves.

The greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.