Paul De Man Quotes

A collection of quotes by Paul De Man.

Paul De Man (1919-1983) was a Belgian-born literary critic and theorist. He is known for his involvement in the deconstruction movement, which aimed to challenge traditional ways of analyzing and interpreting texts. De Man taught at various universities, including Cornell and Yale, where he became a prominent figure in literary and critical theory. His influential works include "Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism" and "Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust." Despite his significant contributions to literary criticism, De Man's reputation was tarnished posthumously by revelations of his involvement with Nazi propaganda during World War II.

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

The critical method which denies literary modernity would ap

The critical method which denies literary modernity would appear -- and even, in certain respects, would be -- the most modern of critical movements.

Modernity exists in the form of a desire to wipe out whateve

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.

Modern Modernism

Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.

Metaphors are much more tenacious than facts.

Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and

Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.

Literature... is condemned (or privileged) to be forever the

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.

The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered

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.

Authors & Writing

The writer's language is to some degree the product of his o

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.

Authors & Writing

Fashion is like the ashes left behind by the uniquely shaped

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.

Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode o

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.