Eugène Ionesco Quotes

But you'll never become a rhinoceros, really you won't ... you haven't got the vocation!

"Eroarea lui André Breton este,poate,de a se fi luat prea în serios.Trebuie să te iei doar puțin în serios,altminteri totul e inconsistent.Dar dacă te iei prea în serios,nu mai există libertate,e gata pușcăria,strangularea.Nu mai ai cu adevărat "libertate de mișcare".Nu te mai miști,ești prins,ești una cu lucrurile,nu mai ai distanța necesară de a vedea clar.Trebuie să fii numai pe jumătate serios."

None of us would have written as we do without surrealism and dadaism. By liberating the language, those movements paved the way for us.

BERENGER: And you consider all this natural?

DUDARD: What could be more natural than a rhinoceros?

BERENGER: Yes, but for a man to turn into a rhinoceros is abnormal beyond question.

DUDARD: Well, of course, that's a matter of opinion ...

BERENGER: It is beyond question, absolutely beyond question!

DUDARD: You seem very sure of yourself. Who can say where the normal stops and the abnormal begins? Can you personally define these conceptions of normality and abnormality? Nobody has solved this problem yet, either medically or philosophically. You ought to know that.

BERENGER: The problem may not be resolved philosophically — but in practice it's simple. They may prove there's no such thing as movement ... and then you start walking ... [he starts walking up and down the room] ... and you go on walking, and you say to yourself, like Galileo, 'E pur si muove' ...

DUDARD: You're getting things all mixed up! Don't confuse the issue. In Galileo's case it was the opposite: theoretic and scientific thought proving itself superior to mass opinion and dogmatism.

BERENGER: [quite lost] What does all that mean? Mass opinion, dogmatism — they're just words! I may be mixing everything up in my head but you're losing yours. You don't know what's normal and what isn't any more. I couldn't care less about Galileo ... I don't give a damn about Galileo.

DUDARD: You brought him up in the first place and raised the whole question, saying that practice always had the last word. Maybe it does, but only when it proceeds from theory! The history of thought and science proves that.

BERENGER: [more and more furious] It doesn't prove anything of the sort! It's all gibberish, utter lunacy!

DUDARD: There again we need to define exactly what we mean by lunacy ...

BERENGER: Lunacy is lunacy and that's all there is to it! Everybody knows what lunacy is. And what about the rhinoceroses — are they practice or are they theory?

Atunci, stimată doamnă, cred că nu mai încape nici o îndoială, ne-am mai văzut, iar dumneavoastră sunteţi chiar soţia mea.

I have never been to the Right, nor have I been a Communist, because I have experienced, personally, both forms of totalitarianism. It is those who have never lived under tyranny who call me petit bourgeois.

Toată problema prepoporanistă a lui Alecu Russo, problema specificului românesc, a formelor goale ale culturii, teoria pseudomorfozelor culturii, a simbolismului ce revelează el singur adevăratul nostru spirit: cel latin, a sămănătorismului ce revelează el singur adevăratul nostru spirit: cel rural, a ortodoxismului ce revelează el singur adevăratul nostru spirit: cel slav, şi alte bâjbâieli, îmi aminteşte povestea aceluia care nu ştia dacă el sau frate-său mai e viu pentru că unul din ei — nu se ştie care — s-a înecat în baie.

Assassin! Misérable! Tu m'as tuée et maintenant tu ne veux pas que je m'empoisonne!

I didn't mean you were stupid. It's just that you're not logical, which isn't the same thing at all.

But even if I know what governs their trajectory, if I know the rules of the movement of things and how things are organized and how certain mutations, transformations, gestations take place, even if I know all that, I shall only have learnt how to get along after a fashion in the enormous gaol, the oppressive prison in which I am held. What a farce, what a snare, what a booby-trap. We were born cheated. For if we are not to know, if there is nothing to know, why do we have this longing to know?

Prenez un cercle, caressez-le, il deviendra vicieux.

We haven't the time to take our time.

Criza limbajului

Ruptura între ființă și gandire.Gandirea,golită de ființă,se usucă,se vestejește,nu mai e gandire.Într-adevăr,gandirea e expresia ființei,coincide cu ființa.Poți vorbi fără să gandești.Pentru asta avem la dispoziție clișeele,adică automatismele.Gandirea adevărată nu poate fi decat vie.

Sînt deja închis. Cum sînt toti. Închis si totodata prea liber.

He would say ect. instead of ect., and thus instead of ect., instead of ect. and thus and so forth!