Roland Barthes - Literature Quotes

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Literature is without proofs. By which it must be understood that it cannot prove, not only what it says, but even that it is worth the trouble of saying it.

Roland Barthes

Death of the Father would deprive literature of many of its pleasures. If there is no longer a Father, why tell stories? Doesn't every narrative lead back to Oedipus? Isn't storytelling always a way of searching for one's origin, speaking one's conflicts with the Law, entering into the dialectic of tenderness and hatred?

Roland Barthes

The goal of literary work (of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer but a producer of the text.

Roland Barthes

What do things signify, what does the world signify? All literature is this question, but we must immediately add, for this is what constitutes its specialty, literature is this question minus its answer.

Roland Barthes

Literature is like phosphorus: it shines with its maximum brilliance and the moment when it attempts to die.

Roland Barthes