Jacques Derrida Quotes

To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.

Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets.

I always dream of a pen that would be a syringe.

Psychoanalysis has taught that the dead "“ a dead parent, for example "“ can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts.

The poet"¦is the man of metaphor: while the philosopher is interested only in the truth of meaning, beyond even signs and names, and the sophist manipulates empty signs"¦the poet plays on the multiplicity of signifieds.

I speak only one language, and it is not my own.

The traditional statement about language is that it is in itself living, and that writing is the dead part of language.

Peace is only possible when one of the warring sides takes the first step, the hazardous initiative, the risk of opening up dialogue, and decides to make the gesture that will lead not only to an armistice but to peace.

Within the university... you can study without waiting for any efficient or immediate result. You may search, just for the sake of searching, and try for the sake of trying. So there is a possibility of what I would call playing. It's perhaps the only place within society where play is possible to such an extent.

Contrary to what phenomenology- which is always phenomenology of perception- has tried to make us believe, contrary to what our desire cannot fail to be tempted into believing, the thing itself always escapes.