Alfred Jarry

“We believe... that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.”

“We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.”

“The work of art is a stuffed crocodile.”

“Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music as an excuse for its ovations.”

“Blind and unwavering undisciplined at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.”

“The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character.”

“God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.”

“One can show one's contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one's life a poem of incoherence and absurdity.”

“It is conventional to call 'monster' any blending of dissonant elements. I call 'monster' every original inexhaustible beauty.”