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Ever since I was fifteen, that is to say from that moment when I lost all that was left me of my childhood, from the moment when I ceased to be aware of the present and knew only the past hurrying into the future, that is to say into the abyss, ever since I became fully conscious of time I have felt old and I have wanted to live. I have run after life as though to catch time, and I have tried to live. I have run after life so much that it has always escaped me, I have run, I have never been late and never too early, and yet I have never caught up with it: it is as though I have run alongside of it.What is life, I may be asked. For me, life is not Time; it is not this state of existence, for ever escaping us, slipping between our fingers and vanishing like a ghost as soon as you try to grasp it. For me it is, it must be, the present, presentness, plenitude. I have run after life so much that I have lost it. By Eugene Ionesco Run Life Moment Time Live

In the name of religion, one tortures, persecutes, builds pyres. In the guise of ideologies, one massacres, tortures and kills. In the name of justice one punishes ... in the name of love of one's country or of one's race hates other countries, despises them, massacres them. In the name of equality and brotherhood there is suppression and torture. There is nothing in common between the means and the end, the means go far beyond the end ... ideologies and religion ... are the alibis of the means. By Eugene Ionesco Persecutes Tortures Builds Pyres Religion

The universe seems to me infinitely strange and foreign. At such a moment I gaze upon it with a mixture of anguish and euphoria; separate from the universe, as though placed at a certain distance outside it; I look and I see pictures, creatures that move in a kind of timeless time and spaceless space, emitting sounds that are a kind of language I no longer understand or ever register. By Eugene Ionesco Universe Foreign Kind Infinitely Strange

I have always considered imaginative truth to be more profound, more loaded with significance, than every day reality ... Everything we dream about, and by that I mean everything we desire, is true (the myth of Icarus came before aviation, and if Ader or Bleriot started flying it is because all men have dreamed of flight). There is nothing truer than myth ... Reality does not have to be: it is simply what is. By Eugene Ionesco Profound Significance Considered Imaginative Truth

It is true that all authors have tried to make propaganda. The great ones are those who failed, who have gained access, consciously or not, to a deeper and more universal reality. By Eugene Ionesco Propaganda True Authors Make Failed

I have no other pictures of the world apart from those which express evanescence, and callousness, vanity and anger, emptiness, orhideous useless hate. Everything has merely confirmed what I had seen and understood in my childhood: futile and sordid fits of rage, cries suddenly blanketed by the silence, shadows swallowed up for ever by the night. By Eugene Ionesco Emptiness Evanescence Callousness Vanity Anger

I thought that it was strange to assume that it was abnormal for anyone to be forever asking questions about the nature of the universe, about what the human condition really was, my condition, what I was doing here, if there was really something to do. It seemed to me, on the contrary, that it was abnormal for people NOT to think about it, for them to allow themselves to live, as it were, unconsciously. Perhaps it's because everyone, all the others, are convinced in some unformulated, irrational way that one day everything will be made clear. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for humanity. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for me. By Eugene Ionesco Condition Abnormal Universe Thought Strange

I read a page of Plato's great work. I can no longer understand anything, because behind the words on the page, which have their own heavenly brightness, to be sure, there shines an even brighter, an enormous, dazzling -why- that blots out everything, cancels out, destroys all meaning. All individual intelligence. When one has understood, one stops, satisfied with what one has understood. I do not understand. Understanding is far too little. To have understood is to be fixed, immobilized. It is as though one wanted to stop on one step in the middle of a staircase, or with one foot in the void and the other on the endless stair. But a mere why, a new why can set one off again, can unpetrify what was petrified and everything starts flowing afresh. How can one understand? One cannot. By Eugene Ionesco Plato Page Work Understood Understand

In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History ... There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation ... Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freedom that is only beauty, that is only real; life, plenitude, light. By Eugene Ionesco History Peace Manifest Heaven Miracle

I believe that what separates us all from one another is simply society itself, or, if you like, politics. This is what raises barriers between men, this is what creates misunderstanding.If I may be allowed to express myself paradoxically, I should say that the truest society, the authentic human community, is extra-social - a wider, deeper society, that which is revealed by our common anxieties, our desires, our secret nostalgias. The whole history of the world has been governed by nostalgias and anxieties, which political action does no more than reflect and interpret, very imperfectly. No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa. By Eugene Ionesco Society Politics Human Anxieties Separates

I am told, in a dream ... you can only get the answer to all your questions through a dream. So in my dream, I fall asleep, and I dream, in my dream, that I'm having that absolute, revealing dream. By Eugene Ionesco Dream Told Answer Questions Asleep

Since the death instinct exists in the heart of everything that lives, since we suffer from trying to repress it, since everything that lives longs for rest, let us unfasten the ties that bind us to life, let us cultivate our death wish, let us develop it, water it like a plant, let it grow unhindered. Suffering and fear are born from the repression of the death wish. By Eugene Ionesco Lives Death Rest Life Water

I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a will to renewal. This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of crises - of rupture, repudiation and resistance. When there is no crisis, there is stagnation, petrifaction and death. All thought, all art is aggressive. By Eugene Ionesco Renewal Living Moment Culture History

We are all looking for something of extraordinary importance whose nature we have forgotten; I am writing the memoirs of a man who has lost his memory. By Eugene Ionesco Forgotten Memory Extraordinary Importance Nature

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? By Eugene Ionesco Things Transformations Trajectory Mutations Gestations

For me, it is as though at every moment the actual world had completely lost its actuality. As though there was nothing there; asthough there were no foundations for anything or as though it escaped us. Only one thing, however, is vividly present: the constant tearing of the veil of appearances; the constant destruction of everything in construction. Nothing holds together, everything falls apart. By Eugene Ionesco Actuality Moment Actual World Completely

There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to realize myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have succeeded, this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is realizable. Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is. By Eugene Ionesco Myth History Distorts Stops Halfway

The brightest light, the light of Italy, the purest sky of Scandinavia in the month of June is only a half-light when one compares it to the light of childhood. Even the nights were blue. By Eugene Ionesco Light Italy Scandinavia June Childhood

Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers, I'd be a politician. By Eugene Ionesco Questions People Expect Authors Author

Realism falls short of reality. It shrinks it, attenuates it, falsifies it; it does not take into account our basic truths and our fundamental obsessions: love, death, astonishment. It presents man in a reduced and estranged perspective. Truth is in our dreams, in the imagination. By Eugene Ionesco Realism Reality Falls Short Love

But you'll never become a rhinoceros, really you won't ... you haven't got the vocation! By Eugene Ionesco Rhinoceros Vocation

Rhinoceros The Leader The Future is in Eggs or It Takes all Sorts to Make a World By Eugene Ionesco World Leader Future Eggs Sorts

What's chivalrous about saying you've seen a rhinoceros? By Eugene Ionesco Rhinoceros Chivalrous

Many people have delusions of grandeur but you're deluded by triviality. By Eugene Ionesco Triviality People Delusions Grandeur Deluded

FIRE CHIEF: Life is very simple, really. [To the Smiths:] Go on and kiss each other. By Eugene Ionesco Fire Chief Life Simple Smiths

A civil servant doesn't make jokes. By Eugene Ionesco Jokes Civil Servant Make

MR. SMITH: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. [Silence.]MR. MARTIN: Don't you feel well? [Silence.]MRS. SMITH: No, he's wet his pants. [Silence.]MRS. MARTIN: Oh, sir, at your age, you shouldn't. [Silence.]MR. SMITH: The heart is ageless. [Silence.] By Eugene Ionesco Silence Smith Dear Martin Mrs

Oh righteous doom, that they who make Pleasure their only end, Ordering the whole life for its sake, Miss that whereto they tend. While they who bid stern duty lead, Content to follow, they, Of duty only taking heed, Find pleasure by the way. By Eugene Ionesco Ordering Miss Pleasure Doom End

Describe a circle, stroke its back and it turns vicious. By Eugene Ionesco Describe Circle Stroke Vicious Back

I'll never waste my dreams by falling asleep. Never again. By Eugene Ionesco Asleep Waste Dreams Falling

That's how we stay young these days: murder and suicide. By Eugene Ionesco Days Murder Suicide Stay Young

Every message of despair is the statement of a situation from which everybody must freely try to find a way out. By Eugene Ionesco Message Despair Statement Situation Freely

Year after year of dirty snow and bitter winds ... houses and whole districts of people who aren't really unhappy, but worse, who are neither happy nor unhappy; people who are ugly because they're neither ugly nor beautiful; creatures that are dismally neutral, who long without longings as though they're unconscious, unconsciously suffering from being alive. By Eugene Ionesco Year Winds Unhappy Dirty Snow

A really conscientious doctor ought to die with his patient. The captain goes down with his ship. By Eugene Ionesco Patient Conscientious Doctor Die Ship

We need to be virtually bludgeoned into detachment from our daily lives, our habits and mental laziness, which conceal from us the strangeness of the world. Without a fresh virginity of mind, without a new and healthy awareness of existential reality, there can be no theatre and no art either; the real must be in a way dislocated, before it can be re-integrated. By Eugene Ionesco Lives Laziness World Virtually Bludgeoned

All men die in solitude; all values are degraded in a state of misery: that is what Shakespeare tells me By Eugene Ionesco Shakespeare Solitude Misery Men Die

An avant-garde man is like an enemy inside a city he is bent on destroying, against which he rebels; for like any system of government, an established form of expression is also a form of oppression. The avant-garde man is the opponent of an existing system. By Eugene Ionesco Form Man Destroying Rebels Government

All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat. By Eugene Ionesco Die Socrates Dead Cats Cat

The fact that I despise religion doesn't mean I don't esteem it highly. By Eugene Ionesco Highly Fact Despise Religion Esteem

Theatre is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means; a complexity of words, movements, gestures that convey a vision of the world inexpressible in any other way. By Eugene Ionesco Movements Theatre Words Gestures Simply

Every work of art (unless it is a psuedo-intellectualist work, a work already comprised in some ideology that it merely illustrates, as with Brecht ) is outside ideology, is not reducible to ideology. Ideology circumscribes without penetrating it. The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them. By Eugene Ionesco Brecht Ideology Work Art Illustrates

As soon as one knows one is going to die, childhood is over ... So one can be grown up at seven. Then, I believe most human beings forget what they have understood, recover another sort of childhood that can last all their lives. It is not a true childhood but a kind of forgetting. Desires and anxieties are there, preventing you from having access to the essential truth. By Eugene Ionesco Die Childhood Understood Recover Lives

As I said, I started with poetry, and I also wrote criticism and dialogue. But I realized that I was most successful at dialogue. Perhaps I abandoned criticism because I am full of contradictions, and when you write an essay you are not supposed to contradict yourself. But in the theater, by inventing various characters, you can. My characters are contradictory not only in their language, but in their behavior as well. By Eugene Ionesco Dialogue Poetry Started Wrote Criticism

I've always been suspicious of collective truths. By Eugene Ionesco Truths Suspicious Collective

When silence confronts us, the question to which there is no answer rings out in the silence. That ultimate "why," that great "why" is like a light that blots out everything, but a blinding light; nothing more can be made out ... By Eugene Ionesco Silence Confronts Question Answer Rings

Banality is a symptom of non-communication. Men hide behind their cliches. By Eugene Ionesco Banality Noncommunication Symptom Men Cliches

The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water. By Eugene Ionesco Light Memory Things Lends Palest

A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. By Eugene Ionesco Vacation Writer Writing Life Consists

Only the ephemeral is of lasting value. By Eugene Ionesco Ephemeral Lasting

The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist. We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand that people rarely have the strength to be uncommon. By Eugene Ionesco Resist Supreme Trick Mass Insanity

Politicians are either there or here or totally at home. Their finitude is more than sufficient unto itself. I don't mean to imply that I'm any better than they which does not mean that they are any better than I. Which doesn't mean anything at all. By Eugene Ionesco Politicians Home Totally Finitude Sufficient

DAISY: I never knew you were such a realist-I thought you were more poetic. Where's your imagination? There are many sides to reality. Choose the one that's best for you. Escape into the world of imagination. By Eugene Ionesco Daisy Poetic Knew Realisti Thought

There are more dead people than living. And their numbers are increasing. The living are getting rarer. By Eugene Ionesco Dead People Living Increasing Rarer

I long for solitude and yet I cannot stand it. By Eugene Ionesco Long Solitude Stand

I just can't get used to life. By Eugene Ionesco Life

God is dead. Marx is dead. And I don't feel so well myself. By Eugene Ionesco Dead God Marx Feel

I am, it seems, an avant-garde dramatist. It would even seem obvious since I am present here at discussions on the avant-garde theatre. It is all entirely official. But what does the term avant-garde mean? By Eugene Ionesco Dramatist Avantgarde Theatre Official Obvious

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People, they all have the word goodness on lips a bloody knife between their teeth. By Eugene Ionesco People Teeth Word Goodness Lips

I ought not to have stirred, I was swept into the dance, caught up in the whirling movement of things. Being in Time means running after the present. You run after things, you run with things, you flow away. By Eugene Ionesco Things Stirred Dance Caught Swept

Why was I born, if it wasn't forever? By Eugene Ionesco Born Forever

To become conscious of what is horrifying and to laugh at it is to become master of that which is horrifying By Eugene Ionesco Horrifying Conscious Laugh Master

We are made to be immortal, and yet we die. It's horrible, it can't be taken seriously By Eugene Ionesco Immortal Die Made Horrible

The Arts are man's most useless ... and essential ... activity. By Eugene Ionesco Arts Activity Useless Essential Man

If I write a new play, my point of view may be profoundly modified. I may be obliged to contradict myself and I may no longer know whether I still think what I think. By Eugene Ionesco Play Modified Write Point View

Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in the light, out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us. By Eugene Ionesco Rose Bathed Light Darkness Utterly

Good men make good rhinoceroses, unfortunately. By Eugene Ionesco Rhinoceroses Good Men Make

The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us. When the world seems familiar, when one has got used to existence, one has become an adult. By Eugene Ionesco End Childhood Things Cease Astonish

A man with a soul is not like every other man. By Eugene Ionesco Man Soul

It isn't what people think that is important, but the reason they think what they think By Eugene Ionesco Important People Reason

To me the world seems grotesque, absurd, ridiculous, painful. By Eugene Ionesco Absurd Ridiculous Painful Grotesque World

We haven't the time to take our time. By Eugene Ionesco Time

He would say ect. instead of ect., and thus instead of ect., instead of ect. and thus and so forth! By Eugene Ionesco Ect Ect

It's when I am fully conscious that I ask questions. By Eugene Ionesco Questions Fully Conscious

She has regular features but yet one could not say that she was pretty. She is too big and too stout. Her features are not regular and yet one could say that she is very pretty. She is too small and too thin. She's a voice teacher By Eugene Ionesco Pretty Regular Features Stout Big

Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality. By Eugene Ionesco Drama Feelings Reality Exaggeration Lies

The more I try to explain myself, the less I understand myself. By Eugene Ionesco Explain Understand

Truth has only two sides, but it's the third side that's best. By Eugene Ionesco Truth Sides Side

All the plays that have ever been written, from ancient Greece to the present day, have never really been anything but thrillers ... Drama's always been realistic and there's always been a detective about ... Every play's an investigation brought to a successful conclusion. By Eugene Ionesco Greece Written Day Thrillers Ancient

There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation. By Eugene Ionesco Prison Alienation Religion Everyday Life

I am not capitulating. By Eugene Ionesco Capitulating

The human comedy does not attract me enough. I am not entirely of this world. I am from elsewhere, and it is worth finding this elsewhere beyond the walls ... but where is it? By Eugene Ionesco Human Comedy Attract World Walls

You can only predict things after they have happened. By Eugene Ionesco Happened Predict Things

To tear ourselves away from the everyday, from habit, from mental laziness which hides from us the strangeness of reality, we must receive something like a real bludgeon blow. By Eugene Ionesco Everyday Habit Reality Blow Tear

If one does not understand the usefulness of the useless and the uselessness of the useful, one cannot understand art. By Eugene Ionesco Understand Art Usefulness Useless Uselessness

Of course, not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth. By Eugene Ionesco Words Truth Unsayable Living

If I tell these private thoughts of mine, it is because I know they are not mine alone, and that practically everyone is trying to say the same things and that the writer is only a man who says out loud what other people think or whisper. By Eugene Ionesco Mine Whisper Private Thoughts Practically

It's only when I say that everything is incomprehensible that I come as close as possible to understanding the only thing it is given to us to understand. By Eugene Ionesco Understand Incomprehensible Close Understanding Thing

A nose that can see is worth two that sniff. By Eugene Ionesco Sniff Nose Worth

Dreams are reality at its most profound. By Eugene Ionesco Dreams Profound Reality

We have not the time to take our time. By Eugene Ionesco Time

Mediocrity is more dangerous in a critic than in a writer. By Eugene Ionesco Mediocrity Writer Dangerous Critic

Do rhinoceroses cough? By Eugene Ionesco Cough Rhinoceroses

I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer 12 years old. By Eugene Ionesco Forget Longer Years

When I was born, I was almost fourteen years old. That's why I was able to understand more easily than most what it was all about. By Eugene Ionesco Born Fourteen Years Understand Easily

Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing. By Eugene Ionesco Childhood Astonishing Moment Things Longer

The critic should describe, and not prescribe. By Eugene Ionesco Describe Prescribe Critic

A person who has not completely lost the memory of paradise, even though it is a faint one, will suffer endlessly. He will feel the call of the essential world, will hear the voice that comes from so far away that one cannot find out where it comes from, a voice that cannot guide him. By Eugene Ionesco Paradise Endlessly Person Completely Lost

Logic is a very beautiful thing. As long as it is not abused. By Eugene Ionesco Logic Thing Beautiful Abused Long

People who don't read are brutes. By Eugene Ionesco People Brutes Read

Nothing makes me more pessimistic than the obligation not to be pessimistic. By Eugene Ionesco Pessimistic Makes Obligation

I started writing for the theatre because I hated it. By Eugene Ionesco Started Writing Theatre Hated

I don't believe in seeing evil in everything. I leave that to the inquisitors. By Eugene Ionesco Evil Inquisitors Leave

The poet cannot invent new words every time, of course. He uses the words of the tribe. But the handling of the word, the accent, a new articulation, renew them. By Eugene Ionesco Time Words Poet Invent Word

I am sad when I think that the years go by like sacks that we mark "Returned Empty," sad when I think that we shall be separated from one another and from ourselves. By Eugene Ionesco Returned Empty Sad Mark Years

A work of art really is above all an adventure of the mind. By Eugene Ionesco Mind Work Art Adventure

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. By Eugene Ionesco Enlightens Question Answer

Within the confines of the great, universal prison, I had made for myself a smaller prison, a prison made to order. I had carved out for myself a little niche in which I could live. It was tiny, I had no doubt about that point. But at least it was made to measure, to my measure. A little niche in a prison that kept me from seeing the prison. A prison without work? Was I bored? Was I resigned? Tired, no doubt. By Eugene Ionesco Prison Made Great Universal Order

Shakespeare was the great one before us. His place was between God and despair. By Eugene Ionesco Shakespeare Great God Despair Place

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. By Eugene Ionesco Characters Order Metaphysics Law Undone

Oh words, what crimes are committed in your name?~Jack or The Submission By Eugene Ionesco Jack Submission Words Crimes Committed

It's not that I hate people. I'm just indifferent to them - or rather, they disgust me; and they'd better keep out of my way, or I'll run them down. By Eugene Ionesco People Hate Indifferent Disgust Run

Like all revolutions, the surrealist revolution was a reversion, a restitution, an expression of vital and indispensable spiritual needs. By Eugene Ionesco Reversion Restitution Surrealist Expression Vital

People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil. By Eugene Ionesco People Action Find Base Motives

Beauty is a precious trace that eternity causes to appear to us and that it takes away from us. A manifestation of eternity, and a sign of death as well. By Eugene Ionesco Beauty Eternity Precious Trace Manifestation

Boredom flourishes too, when you feel safe. It's a symptom of security. By Eugene Ionesco Boredom Safe Flourishes Feel Security

Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together. By Eugene Ionesco Ideologies Separate Dreams Anguish Bring

Living is abnormal. By Eugene Ionesco Living Abnormal

Everything that has been will be, everything that will be is, everything that will be has been. By Eugene Ionesco

We haven't the time to take out time. By Eugene Ionesco Time

Language should almost break up or explode in its fruitless effort to contain so many meanings. By Eugene Ionesco Language Meanings Break Explode Fruitless

You've always made the mistake of being yourself. By Eugene Ionesco Made Mistake

I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragoon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least. By Eugene Ionesco Stage Turn Racehorse Hat Song

Solitude seems to oppress me. And so does the company of other people. By Eugene Ionesco Solitude Oppress People Company

Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible. By Eugene Ionesco Explanation Astonishment Incomprehensible Separates Gateway

I'm looking for a monophysite priest to marry our maid. By Eugene Ionesco Maid Monophysite Priest Marry

It's not a certain society that seems ridiculous to me, it's mankind, By Eugene Ionesco Mankind Society Ridiculous