The truth of life lies in the impulsiveness of matter. The mind of man has been poisoned by concepts. Do not ask him to be content, ask him only to be calm, to believe that he has found his place. But only the madman is really calm.
Antonin ArtaudCruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.
Antonin ArtaudIt is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.
Antonin ArtaudWritten poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.
Antonin ArtaudIt is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.
Antonin Artaud