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To me the world seems grotesque, absurd, ridiculous, painful.

Eugene Ionesco

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Eugene Ionesco
Age: 84 †
Born: 1909
Born: November 26
Died: 1994
Died: March 28
Diarist
Dramatist
Graphic Artist
Illustrator
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Stanwood
Washington
Ionesco
Eugen Ionesco
Eugene Ionesco
World
Grotesque
Absurd
Ridiculous
Painful
Seems

More quotes by Eugene Ionesco

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We are made to be immortal, and yet we die. It's horrible, it can't be taken seriously
Eugene Ionesco
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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.
Eugene Ionesco
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I started writing for the theatre because I hated it.
Eugene Ionesco
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We have not the time to take our time.
Eugene Ionesco
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Mediocrity is more dangerous in a critic than in a writer.
Eugene Ionesco
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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.
Eugene Ionesco
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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.
Eugene Ionesco
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Childhood is the world of miracle or of magic: it is as if creation rose luminously out of the night, all new and fresh and astonishing. Childhood is over the moment things are no longer astonishing. When the world gives you a feeling of déjà vu, when you are used to existence, you become an adult.
Eugene Ionesco
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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.
Eugene Ionesco
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Drama lies in extreme exaggeration of the feelings, an exaggeration that dislocates flat everyday reality.
Eugene Ionesco
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Many people have delusions of grandeur but you're deluded by triviality.
Eugene Ionesco
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Logic is a very beautiful thing. As long as it is not abused.
Eugene Ionesco
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Good men make good rhinoceroses, unfortunately.
Eugene Ionesco
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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.
Eugene Ionesco
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Like all revolutions, the surrealist revolution was a reversion, a restitution, an expression of vital and indispensable spiritual needs.
Eugene Ionesco
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People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.
Eugene Ionesco
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Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.
Eugene Ionesco
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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?
Eugene Ionesco
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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.
Eugene Ionesco
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The Arts are man's most useless ... and essential ... activity.
Eugene Ionesco