Eugéne Ionesco (born Eugen Ionesco November 26, 1909 - March 28, 1994) was a Romanian playwright who wrote mostly in French, and one of the foremost figures of the French Avant-garde theatre. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's plays depict the solitude and insignificance of human existence in a tangible way. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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Everything that has been will be, everything that will be is, everything that will be has been.
God is dead. Marx is dead. And I don't feel so well myself.
Good men make good rhinoceroses, unfortunately.
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.
I let characters and symbols emerge from me, as if I were dreaming. I always use what remains of my dreams of the night before. Dreams are reality at its most profound, and what you invent is truth because invention, by its nature, can't be a lie. Writers who try to prove something are unattractive to me, because there is nothing to prove and everything to imagine. So I let words and images emerge from within. If you do that, you might prove something in the process.
I'm just a historical dead end. I hope at least that my fate will serve as an example to you all and to posterity.
Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
It isn't what people think that's important, but the reason they think what they think.
It's not a certain society that seems ridiculous to me, it's mankind.
It's not enough to integrate, you must also disintegrate. That's the way life is. That's philosophy. That's science. That's progress, civilization.
Modern man is a puppet, a jumping jack.
My work has been essentially a dialogue with death, asking him, “Why? Why?” So only death can silence me. Only death can close my lips.
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.
Oh words, what crimes are committed in your name!
People always try to find base motives behind every good action. We are afraid of pure goodness and of pure evil.
People who don't read are brutes. It is better to write than to make war, isn't it?
Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for humanity. Perhaps there will be a morning of grace for me.
Quotes about Ionesco[edit]
The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them.
To introduce people to a different world, to encounter the miracle of being, that is important. When I write “The train arrives at the station,” it is banal, but at the same time sensational, because it is invented.
We are all Victims of Duty.
We exist on several different planes, and when we said nothing had any reason we were referring to the psychological and social plane.
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.
You can stay in society and be alone, as long as you can be detached from the world.
You know, the Cathars believed that the world was not created by God but by a demon who had stolen a few technological secrets from Him and made this world- which is why it doesn't work.
Categories: Eugene Ionesco, Quotes of the day
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