Home > Work > The Seventh Function of Language
1 " If Barthes, along with Bachelard, is one of those who have done most to enrich criticism during the last thirty years, it is not as a theoretician of a still hazy semiology, but as the champion of a new pleasure in reading. "
― Laurent Binet , The Seventh Function of Language
2 " He downs the contents of his glass in a single gulp and, looking at Simon, adds: “This is as amusing as a novel. "
3 " The homosexuals are the new Jesuits. "
4 " There are some who went off in search of unicorns, but found only rhinoceros. "
5 " Don’t forget that one interpretation never exhausts the sign, that polysemy is a bottomless well where we can hear an infinite number of echoes: a word’s meaning never runs dry. "
6 " Eco listens with interest to the story of a lost manuscript for which people are being killed. He sees a man walk past holding a bouquet of roses. His mind wanders for a second, and a vision of a poisoned monk flashes through it. "
7 " The old man rubbed his hands: ‘Ah! A meta-subject! Using language to discuss language, there’s nothing better. I adore that’. "
8 " He liked cock, this intellectual! "
9 " Glory to the logos, my friends! Long live dialectics! Let the party begin! May the verb be with you! "
10 " The slalom race of syntax! "
11 " With Barthes, signs no longer need to be signals: they have become clues. A seismic shift. They’re everywhere. From now on, semiology is ready to conquer the world. "
12 " In the provinces, being queer is worse than being Arab. "
13 " What would you do if you ruled the world?” The gigolo replied that he would abolish all laws. Barthes said: “Even grammar? "
14 " Spinoza fucks Hegel up the arse! Spinoza fucks Hegel up the arse! Down with dialectics! "
15 " As Umberto Eco might say: for communicating, language is perfect; there could be nothing better. And yet, language doesn’t say everything. The body speaks, objects speak, history speaks, individual or collective destinies speak, life and death speak to us constantly in a thousand different ways. Man is an interpreting machine and, with a little imagination, he sees signs everywhere "
16 " We always fail to talk about love’. He quickly scans the text – it’s about Stendhal. Simon is moved by the thought of Barthes sitting at his desk, thinking about Stendhal, about love, about Italy, completely unaware that every hour spent typing this article was bringing him closer to the moment when he would be knocked over by a laundry van. "
17 " And it was you who created us. The notion of male homosexuality didn’t exist in ancient Greece. Socrates could bugger Alcibiades without being seen as a pederast. The Greeks had a more elevated notion of the corruption of youth … "
18 " c’est le bon côté d’être jeune, beau et pauvre: il peut mépriser tranquillement, sans y penser, ceux qui sont prêts à payer, d’une façon ou d’une autre, pour l’avoir "
19 " L’emploi du mot „système” confirme au policier ce qu’il redoutait: il est tombé chez les gauchistes. Il sait d’expérience qu’ils n’ont que ça à la bouche: la société pourrie, la lutte des classes, le „système”... "
20 " Een crisis is juist het feit dat het oude sterft en het nieuwe maar niet geboren kan worden. "
