“Nothing is more necessary or stronger in us than rebellion.”

“Though the immediate impression of rebellion may obscure the fact, the task of authentic literature is nevertheless only conceivable in terms of a desire for fundamental communication with the reader.”

“Sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things.”

“TO WHOM LIFE IS AN EXPERIENCE TO BE CARRIED AS FAR AS POSSIBLE... I have not meant to express my thought but to help you clarify what you yourself think... You are not any more different from me than your right leg is from your left, but what joins us is THE SLEEP OF REASON—WHICH PRODUCES MONSTERS.—Theory of Religion”

“These studies are the result of my attempt to extract the essence of literature. Literature is either the essential or nothing. I believe that the Evil—an acute form of Evil—which it expresses, has a sovereign value for us. But this concept does not exclude morality: on the contrary, it demands a 'hypermorality.'Literature is communication. Communication requires loyalty. A rigorous morality results from complicity in the knowledge of Evil, which is the basis of intense communication.—Literature and Evil”

“Indeed, the direction of the future is only there in order to elude us.”

“You perhaps now know that desire reduces us to pulp.”