“18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.”

“Is it by chance that the 18th century of France, the century of the "philosophy of enlightenment," did not produce any poets except the Marquis de Sade, who -- despite his participation in the events of this epoch -- expressed the first violent protest against the essential postulates of this period?”

“Earlier 18th-century literary language was not supple enough to connect the life of the imagination to that of the street.”

“Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.”

“The world is absurd. Ugly absurd. To repair ugly absurdity, you can't just be normal. You need an alternative absurdity. A beautiful absurdity. We call it 'divine madness'.”

“Most of us know, now, that Rousseau was wrong: that man, when you knock his chains off, sets up the death camps. Soon we shall know everything the 18th century didn't know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us.”