epigram

What changes singularly in the organization ... is the relationship between the voice and graphism: it is the despot who establishes the practice of writing (the most ancient authors saw this clearly); it is the imperial formation that makes graphism into a system of writing in the proper sense of the term. Legislation, bureaucracy, accounting, the collection of taxes, the State monopoly, imperial justice, the functionaries' activity, historiography: everything is written in the despot's procession.

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, ANTI-OEDPIPUS

(1972, tr. 1977)