The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an act with which it cannot coincide. As such, it both affirms and denies its own nature. — 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
