Literature... is condemned (or privileged) to be forever the most rigorous and, consequently, the most reliable of terms in which man names and transforms himself. — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being. — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that… — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
“...asked by his wife whether he wants to have his bowling shoes laced over or laced under, Archie Bunker answers the question: "What's the… — Paul De Man Copy Share Image
What we call ideology is precisely the confusion of linguistic with natural reality, of reference with phenomenalism — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
“Prior to any generalization about literature, literary texts have to be read, and the possibility of reading can never be taken for granted. It… — Paul De Man Copy Share Image
The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements. — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually… — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
Fashion is like the ashes left behind by the uniquely shaped flames of the fire, the trace alone revealing that a fire actually took… — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
The writer's language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own… — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
