Antonin Artaud

It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence read more

It is not opium which makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence it must from time to time be present.

There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, read more

There are souls that are incurable and lost to the rest of society. Deprive them of one means of folly, they will invent ten thousand others. They will create subtler, wilder methods, methods that are absolutely DESPERATE. Nature herself is fundamentally antisocial, it is only by a usurpation of powers that the organized body of society opposes the natural inclination of humanity.

It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves read more

It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.

Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of your bones.

Never tire yourself more than necessary, even if you have to found a culture on the fatigue of your bones.

The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything -- gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness -- read more

The theater, which is in no thing, but makes use of everything -- gestures, sounds, words, screams, light, darkness -- rediscovers itself at precisely the point where the mind requires a language to express its manifestations. To break through language in order to touch life is to create or recreate the theatre.