Roland Barthes (translated by Richard Howard), 'The Semiotic Challenge', University of California Press, 1994

'The Kitchen of Meaning'

'A garment, an automobile, a dish of cooked food, a gesture, a film, a piece of music, an advertising image, a piece of furniture, a newspaper headline - these indeed appear to be heterogeneous objects.
     
What might they have in common? This at least: all are signs. When I walk down the streets - or through life - and encounter these objects, I apply to all of them, if need be without realising it, one and the same activity, which is that of a certain reading; modern man, urban man, spends his time reading. He reads, first of all and above all, images, gestures, behaviours ... Even with regard to written text, we are constantly given a second message to read between the lines of the first ...'

'To decipher the world's signs always means to struggle with a certain innocence of objects.' 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/04/roland-barthes-myths-we-dont-outgrow.html 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/26/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-rereading 

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/29/the-art-of-poetry-no-86-richard-howard