Bartleby
Bartleby ‘does not refuse, but neither does he accept, he advances and then withdraws into this advance, barely exposing himself in a nimble retreat from speech’ (P. Jaworski). … [The formula, I prefer not to,] not only abolishes the term it refers to, and that it rejects, but also abolishes the other term it seemed to preserve, and that becomes impossible. In fact, it renders them indistinct: it hollows out an ever expanding zone of indiscernibility or indetermination between some nonpreferred activities and a preferable activity. All particularity, all reference is abolished. … [T]he formula „disconnects“ words and things, words and actions, but also speech acts and words-it severs language from all reference, in accordance with Bartleby‘s absolute vocation, to be a man without references, someone who appears suddenly and then disappears, without reference to himself or anything else.
G. Deleuze: Bartleby; or, the formula. In Essays critical and clinical, London 1998, 70/71/73-4