"The images which quicken desire or provokes the critical spasm are usually equivocal, louche: if it be horror, if it be death these images present, they always present them guilefully. Even in Sade's universe, death's terrible edge is deflected away from the self and aimed at the partner, the victim, at the other - and, contradictory, Sade shows the other as the most eminently delightful expression of life..."

George Bataille