Antonin Artaud

It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence read more

It 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.

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then read more

Written 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.

There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium read more

There 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

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.

All true language is incomprehensible, like the chatter of a beggar's teeth.

There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, read more

There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely DESPERATE. Nature herself is fundamentally antisocial, it is only by a usurpation of powers that the organized body of society opposes the natural inclination of humanity.