Alfred Jarry Quotations

God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.

Blind and unwavering undisciplined at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.

We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.

It is conventional to call 'monster' any blending of dissonant elements. I call 'monster' every original inexhaustible beauty.

The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character.

Applause that comes thundering with such force you might think the audience merely suffers the music as an excuse for its ovations.

We believe... that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.

It is because the public are a mass -- inert, obtuse, and passive -- that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear-like grunts where they are -- and also where they stand. They are pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against intelligence.

Our lives are without reason, nothing outside the individuality.

The work of art is a stuffed crocodile.

You're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, Madam, is it because we have company?

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost expurgated of idiots.

Duration is the transformation of a succession into a reversion. In other words: THE BECOMING OF A MEMORY.

It is because the public are a mass inert, obtuse, and passive that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear-like grunts where they are and also where they stand. They are pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against intelligence.

To keep up even a worthwhile tradition means vitiating the idea behind it which must necessarily be in a constant state of evolution: it is mad to try to express new feelings in a mummified form.

Dieu est le point tangent de ze ro et de l'infini. God is the tangential point of zero and the infinite.

La mort n'est que pour les me diocres. Death is only for the mediocre.

Dawn was breaking, like the light from another world.

To be weird! That is my goal!

It is one of the great joys of home ownership to fire a pistol in one's own bedroom

Laughter is born out of the discovery of the contradictory.

Talking about things that are understandable only weighs down the mind.

Anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water, that terrible poison, so corrosive that out of all substances it has been chosen for washing and scouring, and a drop of water added to a clear liquid like Absinthe, muddles it.

God is the shortest distance from zero to infinity.

The applause of silence. is the only kind that counts.

I am dying. Please ... bring me a toothpick.

Blind and unwavering indiscipline at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.