Antonin Artaud

The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything -- gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness -- read more

The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything -- gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness -- rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind requires a language to express its manifestations. To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theatre.

However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itself often read more

However fiercely opposed one may be to the present order, an old respect for the idea of order itself often prevents people from distinguishing between order and those who stand for order, and leads them in practice to respect individuals under the pretext of respecting order itself.

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

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.

Ah! How neatly tied, in these people, is the umbilical cord of morality! Since they left their mothers they have read more

Ah! How neatly tied, in these people, is the umbilical cord of morality! Since they left their mothers they have never sinned, have they? They are apostles, they are the descendants of priests; one can only wonder from what source they draw their indignation, and above all how much they have pocketed to do this, and in any case what it has done for them.