From A Thousand Plateaus

 

"A plateau is always in the middle, not at the beginning or the end."

 

..."a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or external end."

 

..."but concepts are lines, which is to say, number systems attached to a particular dimension of the multiplicities (strata, molecular chains, lines of flight or rupture, circles of convergence, etc.)."

 

"We call a "plateau" any multiplicity connected to other multiplicities by superficial underground stems in such a way as to form or extend a rhizome."