Peter Weiss Quotes

Charlotte Corday walked alone
Paris birds sang sugar calls
Charlotte walked down lanes of stone
through the haze of perfume stalls
Charlotte smelt the dead's gangrene
Heard the singing guillotine

OS QUATRO CANTORES
Pobre Marat em tua casa cercada
estás adiantado um século de nós
Enquanto tine a lâmpada lá fora
e tuas palavras se decompõe
escorre-se em sangue
toda a verdade que aprendeste,

I could buy myself paper, a pen, a pencil and a brush and could create pictures whenever and wherever I wanted. … That evening, in the spring of 1947, on the embankment of the Seine in Paris, at the age of thirty, I saw that it was possible to live and work in the world, and that I could participate in the exchange of ideas that was taking place all around, bound to no country.

We can say what we like without favour or fear
and what we can't say we can breathe in your ear

Inseparable from economic advantage was the superiority of knowledge. Ownership involved greed, and the advantaged tried as long as possible to block the road to education for the have-nots. The privileges of the ruling class could not be eliminated until we gained insight into the conditions and acquired fundamental knowledge. We kept getting repulsed over and over because our ability to think, to deduce, and conclude was insufficiently developed. This state of affairs began changing with the realization that the upper classes essentially opposed our thirst for knowledge. Ever since, our most important goal was to conquer an education, a skill. In every field of research, by using any means, cunning and strength of mind. From the very outset, our studying was rebellion.

What kind of town is this
What sort of streets are these
Who invented this
who profits by it
I saw peddlers
at every corner
they’re selling little guillotines
with tiny sharp blades
and dolls filled with red liquid
which spurts fro the neck
when the sentence is carried out.
What kind of children are these
who can play
with this toys so efficiently
and who is judging

And now Marat
now I see where
this revolution is heading
To the withering of the individual man
and a slow merging into uniformity
to the death of choice
to self denial
to deadly weakness
in a state
which has no contract with individuals
but which is impregnable

Singers: We've got nothing always had nothing
nothing but holes and millions of them
Kokol: Living in holes
Polpoch: Dying in holes
Cucurucu: Holes in our bellies
Rossignol: and holes in our clothes

In Dante the hero would rather flee and renounce the tempting embrace instead of yielding to his desires and enduring the attendant dangers.

Long ago I left heroics to the heroes

SADE
Desprezo essas manifestações da masa
que giram em círculo vicioso
(...)
Desprezo todas essas boas intenções
que se perdem nas vielas
desprezo todos os sacrifícios
feitos por alguma coisa
Só acredito em mim mesmo.

Once and for all
the idea of glorious victories
won by the glorious army
must be wiped out
Neither side is glorious
On either side they're just frightened men messing their pants
and they all want the same thing
Not to lie under the earth
but to walk upon it
without crutches

(Roux, act 1, scene 19)

SADE
Olhai-os Marat
olhai os antigos donos de todos os bens do mundo
como transformaram em triunfo a sua queda
Agora que lhes roubaram todos os prazeres
O cadafalso guarda-os de tédio infindo
Felizes sobem as escadas
como se subissem ao trono
Não é o cúmulo da corrupção

Like Bretonne, Sue stood on the side of the poorest, despised art that allowed itself to be exploited by the ruling classes, and believed that poems ought to be scratched into walls and bridge vaults, able to be read by vagabonds, surrendered to the elements.

Against Nature's silence I use action
In the vast indifference I invent a meaning
I don't watch unmoved I intervene
and say that this and this are wrong
and I work to alter them and improve them
The important thing
is to pull yourself up by your own hair
to turn yourself inside out
and see the whole world with fresh eyes