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So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.

Antonin Artaud

We must wash literature off ourselves. We want to be men above all, to be human.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Human Literature Ourselves
Actors are athletes of the heart.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Actor Athlete Heart One Liner
I am adding another language to the spoken language, and I am trying to restore to the language of speech its old magic, its essential spellbinding power, for its mysterious possibilities have been forgotten.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Essential Forget Language Myself Mysterious Possible Talk
There are those who go to the theatre as they would go to a brothel.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Character Sex Theatre
The fixation of the theater in one language–written words, music, lights, noises–betokens its imminent ruin.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Language Noise Ruin Theatre Writing
Cruelty signifies rigor, implacable intention and decision, irreversible and absolute determination.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Cruelty Decision Determination Intention
There is nothing like an insane asylum for gently incubating death.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Asylum Death Insane
By suicide I introduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will … now I choose the direction of my thought and the direction of my faculties, my tendencies, my reality.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Design Direction Introduction Myself Nature Reality Suicide Tendency
I abandon myself to the fever of dreams, in search for new laws.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Abandonment Dreams Fever Law Myself Search
I know each conversation with a psychiatrist in the morning made me want to hang myself because I knew I could not strangle him.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Conversation Hang Morning Myself
If 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 ARTAUD

Force Form Imagination Life Magic Observation Ourselves
I call for actors burning at the stakes, laughing at the flames.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Actor Burning Call Flame Laughter Myself
[defines a madman as] a man who preferred to become mad,in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Definition Honor Ideas Man Preference Superior
The idea of a detached art, of poetry as a charm which exists only to distract our leisure, is a decadent idea and an unmistakable symptom of our power to castrate.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Art Ideas Mistake Ourselves Poetry Power
When we speak the word ‘life,’ it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Form Fragile Life Reach Surface Talk Word
I do not work within the confines of any realm. I work in the unique moment of duration.
ANTONIN ARTAUD

Moments Myself Unique Work

So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.

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So long as we have failed to eliminate any of the causes of human despair, we do not have the right to try to eliminate those means by which man tries to cleanse himself of despair.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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