Quotes by Paul De Man

Paul De Man

In België geboren American literair criticus

Lived from: 1919 - 1983

Category: Media Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 6 december 1919 Died: 21 december 1983

  • 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.
  • Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.
  • The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear - and even, in certain respects, would be - the most modern of critical movements.

Quotes 1 till 10 of 10.

  • Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.
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  • Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.
    ― Paul De Man
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  • Fashion is like the ashes left behind by the uniquely shaped flames of the fire, the trace alone revealing that a fire actually took place.
    ― Paul De Man
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  • 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
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  • 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
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  • Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.
    ― Paul De Man
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  • Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whatever came earlier, in the hope of reaching at least a point that could be called a true present, a point of origin that marks a new departure.
    ― Paul De Man
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  • 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
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     0
  • 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
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     0
  • 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 language.
    ― Paul De Man
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Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from Paul De Man?

The two most famous quotes from Paul De Man are:

  • "Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means."
  • "Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament."

When did Paul De Man live?

Paul De Man was born in 1919 and died in the year 1983.