“Paris é um centro, entende, uma mandala que é preciso percorrer sem dialética, um labirinto onde as  fórmulas pragmáticas só servem para a gente se perder. Então, um cogito que seja como respirar Paris, entrar em Paris, deixando que Paris também entre em nós, neuma e não logos ”.

Julio Cortázar. Rayuela.

 

“it is no accident that propels people like us to Paris. Paris is simply an artificial stage, a revolving stage that permits the spectator to glimpse all phases of the conflict. Of itself Paris initiates no dramas. They are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of artificial births. Rocking here in the cradl each one slips back into his soil: one dreams back to Berlin, New York, Chicago, Vienna,  Minsk, Vienna is never more Vienna than in Paris.  Everything is raised to apotheosis. The cradle gives up  its babes and new ones  take their places. You can read here on the walls  where Zola  lived and Balzac  and Dante and Strindberg  and everybody  who ever was anything. Everyone has lived here some time or other. Nobody dies here. . . . . 

Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer.