Quotes by Jacques Derrida

About Jacques Derrida:

Jacques Derrida is best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he discussed in numerous texts. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its laws and rules are not, however, harbored in the inaccessibil...

Jacques Derrida

Let us being again. To take some examples: why should “literature” still designate that which already breaks away from literature—away from what has always been conceived and signified under that name—or that which, not merely escaping litera...

Jacques Derrida

Still less, despite appearances, will it have been a collection of three “essays” whose itinerary it would be time, after the fact, to recognize; whose continuity and underlying laws could now be pointed out; indeed, whose overall concept or mean...

Jacques Derrida

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

Jacques Derrida

Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the usual sense of this opposition), as a small or large unity, can be cited, put between quotation marks; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new conte...

Jacques Derrida

It goes without saying that these effects do not suffice to annul the necessity for a “change of terrain.” It also goes without saying that the choice between these two forms of deconstruction cannot be simple and unique. A new writing must weave...

Jacques Derrida

But because me and myself, as you no doubt are well aware, we are going to die, my relation—and yours too—to the event of this text, which otherwise never quite makes it, our relation is that of a structurally posthumous necessity. Suppose, in th...

Jacques Derrida

And still the text will remain, if it is really cryptic and parodying (and I tell you that it is so through and through. I might as well tell you since it won’t be of any help to you. Even my admission can very well be a lie because there is dissim...

Jacques Derrida

The boarding-school experience in Paris was very hard, I didn't put up with it very well. I was sick all the time, or in any case frail, on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Jacques Derrida

The circle of the return to birth can only remain open, but this is a chance, a sign of life, and a wound.

Jacques Derrida

I became the stage for the great argument between Nietzsche and Rousseau. I was the extra ready to take on all the roles.

Jacques Derrida

In philosophy, you have to reckon with the implicit level of an accumulated reserve, and thus with a very great number of relays, with the shared responsibility of these relays.

Jacques Derrida

I wrote some bad poetry that I published in North African journals, but even as I withdrew into this reading, I also led the life of a kind of young hooligan.

Jacques Derrida

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

Jacques Derrida

As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene.

Jacques Derrida

Certain readers resented me when they could no longer recognize their territory, their institution.

Jacques Derrida

Every discourse, even a poetic or oracular sentence, carries with it a system of rules for producing analogous things and thus an outline of methodology.

Jacques Derrida

Everything is arranged so that it be this way, this is what is called culture.

Jacques Derrida

I do everything I think possible or acceptable to escape from this trap.

Jacques Derrida

I do not believe in pure idioms. I think there is naturally a desire, for whoever speaks or writes, to sign in an idiomatic, irreplaceable manner.

Jacques Derrida

Author Bio

  • NameJacques Derrida
  • DescriptionFrench philosopher (1930-2004)
  • BornJuly 15, 1930
  • DiedOctober 9, 2004
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionPhilosopher; Author
  • AwardsTheodor W. Adorno Award