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These years of the Ecole Normale were an ordeal. Nothing was handed to me on the first try.

Jacques Derrida

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Jacques Derrida
Age: 74 †
Born: 1930
Born: July 15
Died: 2004
Died: October 9
Literary Critic
Philosopher
University Teacher
Writer
Jackie Derrida
Jackie Elie Derrida
Jackie Élie Derrida
J. Derrida
Ordeal
Ordeals
Handed
Firsts
Nothing
First
Trying
Years

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Deconstruction never had meaning or interest, at least in my eyes, than as a radicalization, that is to say, also within the tradition of a certain Marxism, in a certain spirit of Marxism.
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The circle of the return to birth can only remain open, but this is a chance, a sign of life, and a wound.
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Each time this identity announces itself, someone or something cries: Look out for the trap, youre caught. Take off, get free, disengage yourself.
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But can one not conceive of a presence, and of a presence to itself of the subject before speech or signs, a presence to itself of the subject in a silent and intuitive consciousness? Such a question therefore presupposes that, prior to the sign, and outside it, excluding any trace and any différance, something like consciousness is possible.
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I do everything I think possible or acceptable to escape from this trap.
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I say things that contradict each other, that are in real tension with each other, that compose me, that make me live, and that will make me die.
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Cinema plus Psychoanalysis equals the Science of Ghosts.
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Who ever said that one was born just once?
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Such a caring for death, an awakening that keeps vigil over death, a conscience that looks death in the face, is another name for freedom.
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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.
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We are given over to absolute solitude. No one can speak with us and no one can speak for us we must take it upon ourselves, each of us must take it upon himself.
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Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets.
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If things were simple, word would have gotten around.
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As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene.
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I’m no good for anything except taking the world apart and putting it together again (and I manage the latter less and less frequently).
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These critics organize and practice in my case a sort of obsessive personality cult which philosophers should know how to question and above all, to moderate.
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I always dream of a pen that would be a syringe.
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The trace I leave to me means at once my death, to come or already come, and the hope that it will survive me. It is not an ambition of immortality it is fundamental. I leave here a bit of paper, I leave, I die it is impossible to exit this structure it is the unchanging form of my life. Every time I let something go, I live my death in writing.
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I am one of those marranes who no longer say they are Jews even in the secret of their own hearts.
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We are all mediators, translators.
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