There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society: to retreat ahead of it.
Roland Barthes

The New is not a fashion, it is a value.
Roland Barthes

Literature is the question minus the answer.
Roland Barthes

What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
Roland Barthes

Language is legislation, speech is its code. We do not see the power which is in speech because we forget that all speech is a classification, and that all classifications are oppressive.
Roland Barthes

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.
Roland Barthes

A photograph is always invisible, it is not it that we see.
Roland Barthes

The politician being interviewed clearly takes a great deal of trouble to imagine an ending to his sentence: and if he stopped short? His entire policy would be jeopardized!
Roland Barthes