Quotes About Meaning

The author enters into his own death, writing begins.

The (i)studium(i) is ultimately always coded, the (i)punctum is not)...

M? interesez de limbaj pentru c? m? r?ne?te sau m? seduce.

La tautologie. Oui, je sais, le mot n'est pas beau. Mais la chose est fort laide aussi.

The photographic image is a message without a code.

ETYMOLOGY: "Panic" relates to the god Pan; but we can play on etymologies as on words (as has always been done) and pretend to believe that "panic" comes from the Greek adjective that means "everything.

Forma bastard? a culturii de mas? este repetarea ruÅŸinoas?:se repet? conÅ£inuturile,schemele ideologice,ÅŸtergerea contradicÅ£iilor,dar se varieaz? formele superficiale:mereu alte c?rÅ£i,emisiuni,filme noi,fapte diverse,dar întodeauna acelaÅŸi sens

A squeeze of the hand—enormous documentation—a tiny gesture within the palm, a knee which doesn't move away, an arm extended, as if quite naturally, along the back of a sofa and against which the other's head gradually comes to rest—this is the paradisiac realm of subtle and clandestine signs: a kind of festival not of the senses but of meaning.)

la vérité est impossible avec le langage

There are thus very engaging myths which are however not innocent.

Au Japon - dans ce pays que j'appelle le Japon - la sexualité est dans le sexe et non ailleurs ; aux États-Unis, c'est le contraire : le sexe est partout, sauf dans la sexualité. L'Empire des signes.

This is why myth is experienced as innocent speech: not because its intentions are hidden—if they were hidden, they could not be efficacious—but because they are naturalised.

The text does not gloss the images, which do not illustrate the text.

As proffering, I love you is on the side of expenditure. Those who seek the proffering of the word (lyric poets, liars, wanderers) are subjects of expenditure; they spend the word as if it were impertinent (base) that it be recovered somewhere; they are at the extreme limit of language, where language itself...recognizes that it is without backup or guarantee, working without a net

Le mythe est une parole choisie par l'histoire : il ne saurait surgir de la « nature » des choses.

Nije li najbolnija to?ka tog žalovanja u tome što moram izgubiti jedan jezik - ljubavni jezik? Svršeno je s onim 'Volim te.')

La sanción del crítico no es el sentido de la obra, sino el sentido de lo que dice sobre ella.

And yet, nothing can escape being put into question by History; not even good writing.

Roland Barthes

Truth to tell, what is invested in the concept is less reality than a certain knowledge of reality; in passing from the meaning to the form, the image loses some knowledge: the better to receive the knowledge in the concept. In actual fact, the knowledge contained in a mythical concept is confused, made of yielding, shapeless associations.

printed fashion functions, semiologically speaking, like a true mythology of clothing: it is even because the vestimentary signified is here objectified, thickened, that fashion is mythic. So it is this mythology of clothing (one could also say its utopia) that needs to be the first stage of a vestimentary linguistics.

Who knows? Maybe something valuable in these notes?

Roland Barthes

è sterile ricondurre l'opera a qualcosa di puramente esplicito, perché allora non c'è, immediatamente, più nulla da dirne e perché la funzione dell'opera non può consistere nel chiudere le labbra di coloro che la leggono