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Opacities can coexist and converge, weaving fabrics. To understand these truly one must focus on the texture of the weave and not on the nature of its components. (p. 190)

— Édouard Glissant Poetics of Relation (1990)

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More quotes by Édouard Glissant

Having a bit of earth amounts to nothing when the earth as a whole does not belong to everyone. ("Dry Season at La Toufaille")

Le Quatrième Siècle (1964)

In creolization, you can change, you can be one with the other, you can change with the other while being yourself, you are not one, you are multiple, and you are yourself. You are not lost because you are a multiple. You are not broken apart, because you are multiple.

One World in Relation: Édouard Glissant in Conversation with Manthia Diawara (2011)

To move from the oral to the written is to immobilise the body, to take control (to possess it). ("Poetics")

Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays (1981)

For me, the arrival is the moment where all the components of humanity ... consent to the idea that it is possible to be one and multiple at the same time; that you can be yourself and the other; that you can be the same and the different.

One World in Relation: Édouard Glissant in Conversation with Manthia Diawara (2011)

We clamor for the right to opacity for everyone. (p. 194)

Poetics of Relation (1990)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Édouard Glissant (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.