No, No, I’m Not Where You Are Lying in Wait for Me, but Over Here, Laughing at You
No, no, I’m not where you are lying in wait for me, but over here, laughing at you.
What, do you imagine that I would take so much trouble and so much pleasure in writing, do you think I would keep so persistently to my task, if I were not preparing~with a rather shaky hand~a labyrinth into which I can venture, in which I can move my discourse, opening up underground passages, forcing it to go far from itself, finding overhangs that reduce and deform its itinerary, in which I can lose myself and appear at last to eyes I will never have to meet again. I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us our morality when we write.
~Michel Foucault
The Archaeology of Knowledge. Quoted in “The Laugh of Michel Foucault” Heterologies: Discourse on the Other ~ Michel de Certeau (Tr. Brian Massumi) ~ Minneapolis : U of Minnesota P, 1997 / pg 193
