“If the writer of these lines has succeeded in providing some material for clarifying these problems, he may regard his labours as not having been fruitless.”

“The capitalist cannot store labour-power in warehouses after he has bought it, as he may do with the raw material.”

“The skill and the art of the labourer have been overlooked, and he has been vilified; while the work of his hands has been worshiped.”

“A painter may know what he does not want.
But woe betide him if he wants to know
what he does want! A painter is lost if he finds himself.
The fact that he has succeeded in not finding
himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only
'achievement.”

“We must remember that the real problem is not how to produce some improvement in the condition of the working man— for that has to a certain extent been attained already— but how to secure his complete material independence.”

“I hope the reader will not just read through the examples but will also ask why it is that such material is not placed before our students. After all it is not difficult to come by, and, as the reader will agree after going through it, it has the most direct bearing on our denationalization. Yet, even though he may have considerable interest in our current problems, even though he may have been following closely the public discourse on such problems, in all probability the reader would not have come across the material. Why is this so?”

“[…] In real war an officer may have only one chance at succeeding. Consider each problem.”

“In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that he aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices.”

“If the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a book of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact.”

“Nor would I scruple, with a due regard,
To read sometimes a rude unpolished bard,
Among whose labours I may find a line,
Which from unsightly rust I may refine,
And, with a better grace, adopt it into mine.”
Nec dubitem versus hirsuti saepe poetae Suspensus lustrare, et vestigare legendo, Sicubi se quaedam forte inter commoda versu Dicta meo ostendant, quae mox melioribus ipse Auspiciis proprios possim mihi vertere in usus, Detersa prorsus prisca rubigine scabra.