Like all magic cultures expressed by appropriate hieroglyphs, the true theater has its shadows too, and, of all languages and all arts, the theater is the only one left whose shadows have shattered their limitations.
ANTONIN ARTAUDLike all magic cultures expressed by appropriate hieroglyphs, the true theater has its shadows too, and, of all languages and all arts, the theater is the only one left whose shadows have shattered their limitations.
ANTONIN ARTAUDIf our life lacks a constant magic it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in consideration of their imagined form and meaning, instead of being impelled by their force.
ANTONIN ARTAUDPoetry is a dissociating and anarchic force which through analogy, associations and imagery, thrives on the destruction of known relationships.
ANTONIN ARTAUDThere is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him.
ANTONIN ARTAUDBefore our eyes is fought a battle of symbols, for there can be theatre only from the moment when the impossible really begins and when the poetry that occurs on the stage sustains and superheats the realized symbols.
ANTONIN ARTAUDThere are those who go to the theatre as they would go to a brothel.
ANTONIN ARTAUDCruelty in the theatre is unrelenting decisiveness, diligence, strictness.
ANTONIN ARTAUDAll true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar’s teeth.
ANTONIN ARTAUDCruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.
ANTONIN ARTAUDI cannot conceive any work of art as having a separate existence from life itself.
ANTONIN ARTAUDI do not work within the confines of any realm. I work in the unique moment of duration.
ANTONIN ARTAUDWe have the right to lie, but not about the heart of the matter.
ANTONIN ARTAUDExcuse my absolute freedom. I refuse to make a distinction between any of the moments of myself.
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 ARTAUDI see in the act of throwing the dice and of risking the affirmation of some intuitively felt truth, however uncertain, my whole reason for living.
ANTONIN ARTAUDThe 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 ARTAUD