Stephen Atkinson

“Askesis is addressed to the other: turn back, look at me, see what you have made of me. It is a blackmail: I raise before the other the figure of my own disappearance, as it will surely occur, if the other does not yield.”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“The world may, at any moment, take a turn, and become less vulgar and stupid.”
― Wyndham Lewis

“Whether he feels guilty with regard to the loved being, or whether he seeks to impress that being by representing his unhappiness, the amorous subject outlines an ascetic behavior of self-punishment (in life style, dress, etc.).

Since I am guilty of this, of that (I have—I assign myself—a thousand reasons for being so), I shall punish myself, I shall chasten my body: cut my hair very short, conceal my eyes behind dark glasses (a way of taking the veil), devote myself to the study of some serious and abstract branch of learning. I shall get up early and work while it is still dark outside, like a monk. I shall be very patient, a little sad, in a word, worthy, as suits a man of resentment. I shall (hysterically) signify my mourning (the mourning which I assign myself) in my dress, my haircut, the regularity of my habits. This will be a gentle retreat; just that slight degree of retreat necessary to the proper functioning of a discrete pathos.”
― Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

“These idiotic sequences of words are psychologically interesting, for they demonstrate with instructive significance the workings of a shattered brain.”
― Max Nordau, Degeneration / by Max Nordau ; translated from the second edition of the German work. 1898 [Leather Bound]