[Knowledge is governed not by] a theory of knowledge, but by a theory of discursive practice.

Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions- to define, classify, control, and regulate people.

I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.

People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does.

Where there is power, there is resistance.

There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations

Search for what is good and strong and beautiful in your society and elaborate from there. Push outward. Always create from what you already have. Then you will know what to do.

From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art.

Are the prisons overpopulated, or is the population over-imprisoned ?

I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place.

Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.

I think he's looking for comfort, but I don't have any to give.

I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner. I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

I think one thing people forget is that every technological advance we fetishize had its place in time.

Secrets are never secure because they are always at risk of being found out.

There is no debate whether we need a cultural policy or not. We do need it, but there are different ways of doing it.

I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most charming man and I used to send him my plays.

Your marriage goes to a whole new level. You not only fall in love with your wife in a new way, but you're forced to pull together. You have to become a united front.

We should keep [the Panama Canal]. After all, we stole it fair and square.

Was she really beautiful? Was she at least what they call attractive? She was exasperation, she was torture.