A Thousand Plateaus: The Rhizome Passage and Key Concepts

“Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, Plateau 1: 'A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo... Unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point... It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and which it overspills... The rhizome operates by variation, expansion, conquest, capture, offshoots... It is composed not of units but of dimensions, or rather directions in motion.' [...] On lines of flight: 'The line of flight is part of the rhizome. Every assemblage has a line of flight that runs across it like a diagonal... It is the line along which something escapes, along which the assemblage transforms itself, deterritorializes.' [...] On desire: 'Desire does not lack anything; it does not lack its object. It is, rather, the subject that is missing in desire, or desire that lacks a fixed subject... Desire and its object are one and the same thing: the machine, as a machine of a machine.' — Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (1980); Anti-Oedipus (1972); SEP 'Gilles Deleuze'”