Ambivalence Quote by Paul de Man

If one reads too quickly or too slowly, one understands nothing.

— Paul de Man

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

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

Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.

— Paul de Man

“...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

What we call ideology is precisely the confusion of linguistic with natural reality, of reference with phenomenalism

— Paul de Man

“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

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

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

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

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

— Paul de Man

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