"What I’m going to write will have less and less chance of being understood, but that’s my problem.” - Jean Baudrillard, 1929-2007. (I'm not linking to the French obit to be pretentious, I just love that photo.)

Reading Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation in my master's program helped me decide to continue in graduate school. Of course, I'm still not sure I understand it. (And, according to the man himself, neither did the creators of The Matrix.)