Eugène Ionesco Quotes

My heart's like a wounded beast, clawing me in its death-throes . . . My stomach's a bottomless pit, my mouth a funnel of fire. Hunger and thirst, hunger and thirst . . .

Spuneţi repede, domnule, că n-am vreme. Eu sînt la odihnă.

BÉRENGER - (a Jean) Você tem força.
JEAN - Sim, eu tenho força: Tenho força por várias razões. Em primeiro lugar, eu
tenho força, porque eu tenho força e em segundo lugar, eu tenho força, porque tenho
força moral. E mais: também tenho força, porque não sou alcoólatra, meu caro. Eu não
o quero magoar, mas devo lhe dizer, que na realidade o que pesa é o álcool.
BÉRENGER - (a Jean) Quanto a mim, sinto pouca força para agüentar a vida. Talvez
também não tenha muito interesse nisso.
A solidão pesa-me. E a sociedade também.
JEAN - (a Bérenger) Você se contradiz. É a solidão que pesa ou é a multidão? Você se
toma por um pensador e não tem nenhuma lógica.
BÉRENGER - (a Jean) Viver é uma coisa anormal.

My work has been essentially a dialogue with death, asking him, “Why? Why?” So only death can silence me. Only death can close my lips.

We moved back to Romania when I was thirteen, and my world was shattered. I hated Bucharest, its society, and its mores — its anti-Semitism for example. I was not Jewish, but I pronounced my r’s as the French do and was often taken for a Jew, for which I was ruthlessly bullied.… It was the time of the rise of Nazism and everyone was becoming pro-Nazi — writers, teachers, biologists, historians … It was a plague! They despised France and England because they were yiddified and racially impure.

Obositul ins

Cineva rupea din el
cîte puțintel.

L-a lăsat decolorat
și cutremurat,

Mirat s-a pipăit
dar nu s-a regăsit.

Din el o forța rea
creștea și-l cuprindea.

Obositul ins
se lăsă cuprins.

I'd rather lay an egg in a box than go and steal an ox.

Now didn't I warn you, just a little while ago: arithmetic leads to philology, and philology leads to crime . . .

A work of art really is above all an adventure of the mind.

Not so with our characters. They have no metaphysics, no order, no law. They are miserable and they don’t know why. They are puppets, undone. In short, they represent modern man. Their situation is not tragic, since it has no relation to a higher order. Instead, it’s ridiculous, laughable, and derisory.

Remembrance of Things Past is too long and difficult, and what is interesting is the seventh volume, Time Regained. Otherwise, Proust’s work is concerned with irony, social criticism, worldliness, and the passage of time, which are not my preoccupations.

But History was against me. History is right, objectively speaking. I'm just a historical dead end. I hope at least that my fate will serve as an example to you all and to posterity.

To introduce people to a different world, to encounter the miracle of being, that is important. When I write “The train arrives at the station,” it is banal, but at the same time sensational, because it is invented.

Acum mă închid,mă cuibăresc în frică,mă înfășor,mă cufund în ea,ca într-un așternut.

Ne m'envoie plus ouvrir la porte. Tu as vu que c'était inutile. L'expérience nous apprend que lorsqu'on entend sonner à la porte, c'est qu'il n'y a jamais personne.