I encountered Difference and Repetition by way of Ugly Feelings, and made a note to myself that I should seek it out sometime. Well, not a month after completing my reading of Ugly Feelings, here I am -- reading a translation of an originally French text, with my gratitude to the translator for their efforts.

~ Ugly Feelings (Close Reading) - post on page 4 mentioning this book

QuoteP. xix (Preface)
confronted with the most mechanical, the most stereotypical repetitions, inside and outside ourselves, we endlessly extract from them little differences, variations and modifications.

Immediately confronted with a mirror reflecting Ngai's stuplime as well as all its connections to videogames -- this is an art form of endless repetition in action, and endless little differences and variations and modifications between those repeated actions. That is not to say that other forms do not also partake in repetition -- repetition and difference are human. I'm pretty excited for this book!

~ Ugly Feelings (stuplime mentioned throughout)

QuoteP. xix (Preface)

The weaknesses of a book are often the counterparts of empty intentions that one did not know how to implement. In this sense, a declaration of intent is evidence of real modesty in relation to the ideal book.

On prefaces in general.

This preface is very hard to read, but Deleuze talks about philosophy books as a class, and his thoughts on philosophy, which is very valuable to me. Just difficult.

At the end he uses a metaphor I can relate to well: Borges' Pierre Menard, who of course evokes the titular concepts very well.

QuoteP. xxii (Preface)

. . . In this case, the most exact, the most strict repetition has as its correlate the maximum of difference ('The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer...'²)

. . . It is in order to approach this double existence [. . . and a corresponding ideal: the pure repetition of the former text and the present text in one another . . .] that we have sometimes had to integrate historical notes into the present text.

Here I frequently repeat by hand a historical text (as above) to capture such text as it is, as I experience it, understand it. Quoting texts is a job made trivial by computers, but the convenience of that automatic duplication takes away time and effort which would rotely give way to thinking if allowed.

The ideas being presented on page 1 are so important to the nature of the digital world right now.

QuoteRepetition is not generality.

Quote. . . generality expresses a point of view according to which one term may be exchanged or substituted for another.

Here Deleuze uses two words in the general as if to illustrate the concept: exchange and substitute are side by side, exchangeable and substitutable for one another.

QuoteBy contrast . . . repetition is a necessary and justified conduct only in relation to that which cannot be replaced . . . concerns non-exchangeable and non-substitutable singularities.

QuoteIf exchange is the criterion of generality, theft and gift are those of repetition. There is, therefore, an economic difference between the two.

Suppose we believe this naively. Stealing software and digital media ('piracy') has no meaning -- neither then does gifting these things. A shame.

QuoteTo repeat is to behave in a certain manner, but in relation to something unique or singular which has no equal or equivalent.