Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
Roland BarthesRead
New York... is a city of geometric heights, a petrified desert of grids and lattices, an inferno of greenish abstraction under a flat sky, a real Metropolis from which man is absent by his very accumulation.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the essence of New York as a city characterized by its structure and emptiness despite its vibrancy.
Roland Barthes describes New York as an intricate and structured city, filled with geometric designs and grids, yet he highlights a paradox of urban life. The city is portrayed as both a marvel of human achievement and a space where the hustle and bustle of life can create a sense of absence or alienation, suggesting that in the midst of our creations, the true human spirit may be lost.
In practice
During a discussion on urban living, one might use this quote to illustrate the complexity of city life.
Is not the most erotic part of the body wherever the clothing affords a glimpse?
If I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a "weakness" or an "absurdity": it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.)
The gesture of the amorous embrace seems to fulfill, for a time, the subject's dream of total union with the loved being: The longing for consummation with the other.
The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.
I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.
All those young photographers who are at work in the world, determined upon the capture of actuality, do not know that they are agents of Death.
All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.
The wish to hurt, the momentary intoxication with pain, is the loophole through which the pervert climbs into the minds of ordinary men.
I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?
Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.
I cut an imposing figure. I am large, and I'm tall, and I have tattoos. I am actually really quiet and shy, but maybe people see me, and they don't want to step out of line, or equate disagreement with stepping out of line with a writer they like.
Ideal society is a drama enacted exclusively in the imagination.
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