Quotes by Barthes, Roland

Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion. >>

Literature is without proofs. By which it must be understood that it c >>

The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble >>

Quotations about Writers and Writing

Make em laugh; make em cry; make em wait. >>

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but mo >>

If you describe things as better than they are, you are considered to >>

To endow the writer publicly with a good fleshly body, to reveal that he likes dry white wine and underdone steak, is to make even more miraculous for me, and of a more divine essence, the products of his art. Far from the details of his daily life bringing nearer to me the nature of his inspiration and making it clearer, it is the whole mystical singularity of his condition which the writer emphasizes by such confidences. For I cannot but ascribe to some superhumanly the existence of beings vast enough to wear blue pajamas at the very moment when they manifest themselves as universal conscience.

Barthes, Roland