我的寫作似乎在漸漸變成為得到某種認可。它成為寫作的目的，交流的目的。只有最最初的日記裡，才見到過完全沒有假想讀者的最私密的敘述，因此，十二三歲那個時候的文字今天看來讓人面紅耳赤。可是沒有交流目的性的寫作是不可想象的，這違背了文字存在的意義，也許，任何一段文字都是為了一個潛在的讀者而存在的。我能做到的是，盡量懷著不去考慮“他人為讀者”的寫作願望，既然不得不有讀者，那麼讓“他”是將來時的自己。

在所有的對話方式當中，電話是最糟糕的，它的可惡之處就是讓你不能夠安受沉默，一段平靜自然的、在溝通中常常存在的沉默。

Mia Don’t you hate that?
Vincent What?
Mia Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
Vincent I don’t know. That’s a good question.
Mia That’s when you know you’ve found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.

Pulp Fiction 的對白好像素描淡彩，不尋常的故事有無數個平凡普通日常生活的細節構成元素，漫不經心又漫無邊際的閑聊，這麼信手拈來卻又巧奪天工。也許 Tarantino 只是一個擅於觀察的人，擅於觀察所以作得出好文章。

那些交談的空白，適合有滋有味地咂幾口煙，目光交易，尋找話題，或者加強語氣。電話裡，看不見對方的表情，這種沉默往往導致焦慮的猜疑，結果是搜腸刮肚地找話要說的下一句，或者用傾聽的片刻走一走神 ── 一段步履凌亂的對話。個人的經驗是，沉默很多的電話交談往往是不好的征兆，意味著很快就會有失落的一方不得不中止或被中止。可是沉默很多的對面相處就可以很怡情，甚至可以一句話都不講。那是一個令人追求的境界。

S.R. One of the many things that a reader can unexpectedly learn from your work is to appreciate silence. You write about the freedom it makes possible, its multiple causes and meanings. For instance, you say in your last book that there is not one but many silences. Would it be correct to infer that there is a strongly autobiographical element in this?

FOUCAULT I think that any child who has been educated in a Catholic milieu just before or during the Second World War had the experience that there were many different ways of speaking as well as many forms of silence. There were some kinds of silence which implied very sharp hostility and others which meant deep friendship, emotional admiration, even love. I remember very well that when I met the filmmaker Daniel Schmidt who visited me, I don’t know for what purposes, we discovered after a few minutes that we really had nothing to say to each other. So we stayed together from about three o’clock in the afternoon to midnight. We drank, we smoked hash, we had dinner. And I don’t think we spoke more than twenty minutes during those ten hours. From that moment a rather long friendship started. It was for me the first time that a friendship originated in strictly silent behavior.

Maybe another feature of this appreciation of silence is related to the obligation of speaking. I lived as a child in a petit bourgeois, provincial milieu in France and the obligation of speaking, of making conversations with visitors, was for me something both very strange and very boring. I often wondered why people had to speak. Silence may be a much more interesting way of having a relationship with people.

S.R. There is in North-American Indian culture a much greater appreciation of silence than in English-speaking societies and I suppose in French-speaking societies as well.

FOUCAULT Yes, you see, I think silence is one of those things that has unfortunately been dropped from our culture. We don’t have a culture of silence; we don’t have a culture of suicide either. The Japanese do, I think. Young Romans or young Greeks were taught to keep silent in very different ways according to the people with whom they were interacting. Silence was then a specific form of experiencing a relationship with others. This is something that I believe is really worthwhile cultivating. I’m in favor of developing silence as a culture ethos.

- Michel Foucault, An interview by Stephan Riggins, Ethos, 1983