Barthes, Writing Degree Zero: “Between the third person as used by Balzac and that used by Flaubert, there is a world of difference (that of 1848): in the former we have a view of History which is harsh, but coherent and certain of its principles, the triumph of an order; (1/3)

“Warum müssen fast alle Dinge mir als ihre eigene Parodie erscheinen? Warum muß es mir vorkommen, als ob fast alle, nein, alle Mittel und Konvenienzen der Kunst heute nur noch zur Parodie taugten?” — Thomas Mann, Doktor Faustus

“Why must almost everything appear to me as its own parody? Why must it seem to me as if almost all, no, all the means and contrivances of art nowadays are good only for parody?” — Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus (from Adrian’s letter to Kretzschmar) trans. John E. Woods

“A writer of genius today has everything to do. He is not much further advanced than Homer.” — Marcel Proust (“The Method of Sainte-Beuve,” in ASB, tr. John Sturrock)

"The trillionth part has not yet been said, and all that has been said, but multiplies the avenues to what remains to be said." —a Virginian spending July in Vermont

“There are truths, but no truth. I can quite well assert two totally antithetical things and in both cases be right. It’s not permissible to weigh ideas, one against the other—each has a life of its own.” — Robert Musil (Diaries, tr. Payne)

Of all the modernist classics this one reads the most like documentary reportage of 2025. As an allegory of a culture descending into nihilism and fascism it is uncannily prescient.

“All men live enveloped in whale-lines… the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life… If you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker.” #MelvilleMonday 🐳

Blanchot goes further: “The philosopher, in this case, would be someone who is afraid of fear…” (from The Infinite Conversation)

“Wer von uns verbringt nicht den größten Teil seines Lebens im Schatten eines Ereignisses, das noch nicht stattgehabt hat?” — Robert Musil, Tagebücher