The very people who burst with proofs of exuberant vitality could easily be taken for prepared corpses, from whom the news of their not-quite-successful decease has been withheld for reasons of population policy. Underlying the prevalent health is death. All the movements of health resemble the reflex-movements of beings whose hearts have stopped beating.
Theodor AdornoIndeed, happiness is nothing other than being encompassed, an after-image of the original shelter within the mother. But for this reason no one who is happy can know that he is so. To see happiness, he would have to pass out of it: to be as if already born. He who says he is happy lies, and in invoking happiness, sins against it. He alone keeps faith who says: I was happy.
Theodor AdornoThe culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.
Theodor AdornoDeath is imposed only on creatures, not their creations, and has therefore always appeared in art in a broken form: as allegory.
Theodor Adorno