Absurdism Quotes

He shook his head sadly. 'What a fool you are. You've wasted your ability searching for something that doesn't exist.'
'When will you realize you don't exist? ~ Naguib Mahfouz

The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. But happiness likewise, in its way, is without reason, since it is inevitable. ~ Albert Camus

But it is obvious that absurdism hereby admits that human life is the only necessary good since it is precisely life that makes this encounter possible and since, without life, the absurdist wager would have no basis. To say that life is absurd, the conscience must be alive. ~ Albert Camus

It wasn't the lower classes that preached the religion of sexual liberation. That came from the upper classes, with their comfortable cushions against the resulting disorder. What did it matter to them that they were polluting the waters? Their houses were upstream. The biological absurdism of same-sex pseudogamy (mock-marriage) is just the latest effort of the same irresponsible destroyers. Let those who are in favor of the world that the sexual revolution has produced defend it on its "merits," and not decree all discussion out of bounds from the beginning. We are not talking about privacy here, but about the air we all must breathe and the water we all must drink. ~ Anthony M. Esolen

The world itself, whose single meaning I do not understand, is but a vast irrational. If one could
only say just once: "This is clear," all would be saved. But these men vie with one another in proclaiming that nothing is clear, all is chaos, that all man has is his lucidity and his definite knowledge of the walls surrounding him. All these experiences agree and confirm one another. ~ Albert Camus

I've always thought of absurdism as a French fad I'd like to belong to. ~ Robert Sheckley

In regard to absurdism, Samuel Beckett is sometimes considered to be the epitome of the postmodern artist … In fact, he is the aesthetic reductio ad absurdum of absurdism: no longer whistling in the dark, after waiting for Godot, he is trying to be radically silent, wordless in the dark. ~ William Desmond

A typical 'Larry King Live' is a pastiche whose absurdism defies parody. Wearing his trademark suspenders and purple shirts, he looks as if he's strapped to the chair with vertical seat belts, unable to eject. ~ James Wolcott

Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live on the future: "tomorrow," "later on," "when you have made your way," "you will understand when you are old enough." Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it's a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is the absurd. ~ Albert Camus

Unaware that he is only interested in the presumed parched pucker in her pants, she is more than happy to give him her phone number. ~ Curtis Ackie

The Coach's head was oblong with tiny slits that served as eyes, which drifted in tides slowly inward, as though the face itself were the sea or, in fact, a soup of macromolecules through which objects might drift, leaving in their wake, ripples of nothingness. The eyes - they floated adrift like land masses before locking in symmetrically at seemingly prescribed positions off-center, while managing to be so closely drawn into the very middle of the face section that it might have seemed unnecessary for there to have been two eyes when, quite likely, one would easily have sufficed. These aimless, floating eyes were not the Coach's only distinctive feature - for, in fact, connected to the interior of each eyelid by a web-like layer of rubbery pink tissue was a kind of snout which, unlike the eyes, remained fixed in its position among the tides of the face, arcing narrowly inward at the edges of its sharp extremities into a serrated beak-like projection that hooked downward at its tip, in a fashion similar to that of a falcon's beak. This snout - or beak, rather - was, in fact, so long and came to such a fine point that as the eyes swirled through the soup of macromolecules that comprised the man's face, it almost appeared - due to the seeming thinness of the pink tissue - that the eyes functioned as kinds of optical tether balls that moved synchronously across the face like mirror images of one another.

'I wore my lizard mask as I entered the tram, last evening, and ~ Ashim Shanker

Go get your gun because God won't show.
He sent a poet instead.
The Don Quixote of the ICU. Quite impressive for a cripple. Munchhausen by proxy of a muse.
Tempt not a desperate man. This split lip is for you. I traded it for an outdated tooth. ~ Keith Buckley

I don't want harmony. . . . I'd rather remain with my unrequited suffering and my unrequited indignation, even if I am wrong. Besides, they have put too high a price on harmony; we can't afford to pay so much for admission. . . ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. ~ Albert Camus

The jury returned with a verdict of "Don't ask me, I wasn't there," and was excused. ~ Brian Spellman

I am interested only in "nonsense"; only in that which makes no practical sense. I am interested in life only in its absurd manifestations. ~ Daniil Kharms

Like the playwrights of the Absurd, Woolrich recognized that a senseless story best mirrors a senseless existence. ~ Francis M. Nevins Jr.

It is a matter of living in that state of the absurd I know on what it is founded, this mind and this world straining against each other without being able to embrace each other. I ask for the rule - of life of that state, and what I am offered neglects its basis,
negates one of the terms of the painful opposition, demands of me a resignation. I ask what is involved in the condition I recognize as mine; I know it implies obscurity and ignorance; and I am assured that this ignorance explains everything and that this darkness is my
light. ~ Albert Camus

The rats at the door had gone away. I drank another bottle of wine. To think I was once rich. I once had money. I had everything but something.

I used to think that all people desire to be cared for; some are so used to it that they take it for granted, others, who never feel it, desire it so much that they constantly
need it. So much in fact, that when they don't receive it they have outbursts, and in the end they wind up pushing away those people who in the end would have cared for them
as their heart desired within its innermost depths. So they are always alone, always on the edge of society, within it, but at the same time, apart from it. They are like spectators
watching with envy the dance of mankind, wishing for that one feeling that only another's love can bring. A whisper
that speaks to one and only one and says:

"You truly are worth something."

They never know that feeling that shines on some.

So they cease to expect and begin looking elsewhere for that…wonderful whisper of…

War.

Love almost seems like war.

The ancient Greeks used to say, 'Love as if you will one day hate.'

I used to think that meant something very
pessimistic, that love was not real.

But really, man is just an animal anyway.

It's not just about that though, the Greeks meant more. It's like, 'Live as if you will one day die.' Do not take
for gran ~ Michael Szymczyk

Long before the Theater of the Absurd, Woolrich discovered that an incomprehensible universe is best reflected in an incomprehensible story.
("Introduction") ~ Francis M. Nevins Jr.

No! No! I refuse to believe it. I'm sure you've often wished there was an after-life.'

Of course I had, I told him. Everybody has that wish at times. But that had no more importance than wishing to be rich, or to swim very fast, or have a better-shaped mouth. ~ Albert Camus

Back in our apartment, lights out, The Professor emerged from beneath the bed." - from "The Professor Spends the Night," in issue 4 of Literary Orphans ~ Joseph Patrick Pascale

The final conclusion of absurdist reasoning is, in fact, the repudiation of suicide and the acceptance of the desperate encounter between human inquiry and the silence of the universe. Suicide would mean the end of this encounter, and absurdist reasoning considers that it could not consent to this without negating its own premises. ~ Albert Camus

I am unable to believe in a God susceptible to prayer. I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits, and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds. ~ Quentin Crisp

A day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. ~ Albert Camus

The arrow of time obscures memory of both past and future circumstance with innumerable fallacies, the least trivial of which is perception. ~ Ashim Shanker

Kevin is right about his cat. It's all there in his dead cat. The Great Judge can't answer Kevin: 'Why did my cat die?' Answer: 'Damned if I know.' There is no answer; there is only a dead animal that just wanted to cross the street. We're all animals that want to cross the street only something mows us down half-way across that we never saw. ~ Philip K. Dick

The American Dream has become a death sentence of drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage sale where the best of the human spirit is bartered away for comfort, obedience and trinkets. It's unequivocally absurd. ~ Zoltan Istvan

Existence is illusory and it is eternal. ~ Albert Camus

The nightsea journey may be absurd, but here we swim, will-we nill-we, against the flood, onward and upward, toward a shore that may not exist and couldn't be reached if it did. ~ John Barth

Just because someone is a loner, it doesn't mean they're alone. And just because someone is alone, it doesn't mean they're lonely. ~ Jason Daniel Chaplin

So long as the mind keeps silent in the motionless world of its hopes, everything is reflected and arranged in the unity of its nostalgia. But with its first move this world cracks and tumbles: an infinite number of shimmering fragments is offered to the understanding. We must despair of ever reconstructing the familiar, calm surface which would give us peace of heart. ~ Albert Camus

We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them. ~ Albert Camus

You're better looking than me. You're more intelligent than me. Your personality is more likable than mine. You make more money than me. Your family is nicer than mine. Your religion is better than mine. You've seen more beaches than me. You've been to more cities than me. Your automobile is nicer than mine. Your significant other is better looking than mine. Your candidate won. Your home team won. You're number one. But life is a tie. We all die. ~ Jason Daniel Chaplin

Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there's always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her. ~ Albert Camus

One can show one's contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one's life a poem of incoherence and absurdity. ~ Alfred Jarry

And it's inside myself that I must create someone who will understand. ~ Clarice Lispector

Don't you think our society is designed to kill in that way? Of course, you've surely heard about those tiny fish in the rivers of Brazil which attack the swimmer by the thousands, eat him up in a few moments in quick little mouthfuls and leave only a perfectly clean skeleton behind? So, that's the way they're constituted. 'Do you want a clean life, like everyone else?' Of course the answer is yes. How could you not? 'Fine. We'll clean you up. Here's a job, here's a family, here's some organized leisure.' And the little teeth bite into the flesh, right down to the bone. But i'm being unfair. I shouldn't have said, 'the way they're constituted', because after all, it's our way, too: it's a case of who strips whom. ~ Albert Camus

New York, of course, is to be in endless surreal situations where a fifty-thousand dollar, gun-metal Mercedez pulls up into a puddle of blood, and out steps a twenty-five karat blonde transvestite with a two dollar wristwatch. ~ Tom Waits

But practically I know men and recognize them by their behavior, by the totality of their deeds, by the consequences caused in life by their presence. ~ Albert Camus

So, according to you, the other God does exist after all?'
'He doesn't exist, but He is. There's no pain in a stone, but there's pain in the fear of a stone. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Absurdism was really just realism seen from close to the bottom. ~ George Saunders

All existence for a man turned away from the eternal is but a vast mime under the mask of the absurd. Creation is the great mime ... it is itself an absurd phenomenon. ~ Albert Camus

I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless. ~ Albert Camus

They are young and well built, they have another thirty years ahead of them. So they don't hurry, they take their time, and they are quite right. Once they have been to bed together, they will have to find something else to conceal the enormous absurdity of their existence. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

All forms of dogmatic thought create certain problems to the intellect, confining it to very narrow limits. The thought that is impossible to be criticized is going sooner or later to manipulate your own thought. The critical thinking area of the brain would immediately be blocked, if a person is convinced to blindly believe in the existence of some sacred texts or fundamental canons, which are allegedly representation of God's will or some 'perfect' human mind. As soon as emerges such an inevitable belief, the brain automatically begins to set some limits to its function, trying to give the dogmatic thought some rational sense with the help of science and logic, if it is possible, or merely to adjust blind imitation of them without any rational explanation and understanding, if it is impossible. It is very obvious fact that no intelligence can develop in that condition. Whatever rational and logical meaning you can find there, it is because of the brain activity, which gives dogmatism some reasonable sense. Without the brain activity, it is just a symbolism or merely absurdism. If this is so, why should any intelligence need the existence of any dogmatism, regardless of whether it is a religion or some kind of ideological doctrine? ~ Elmar Hussein

To work and create 'for nothing', to sculpture in clay, to know that one's creation has no future, to see one's work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries- this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions. Performing these two tasks simultaneously, negating on one hand and magnifying on the other, is the way open to the absurd creator. He must give the void its colors. ~ Albert Camus

He wishes he were a skilled poet, it would fit his chosen image perfectly; the poor, tragic, tortured artiste. But he has no talent for words, neither for paints nor music; his uselessness is tremendously total. ~ Curtis Ackie

Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. ~ Albert Camus

The only certainty is absurdity. ~ Pugazharasu Anancia Devaneyan

We do naught but scratch the world, frail and fraught. Every vast drama of civilizations, of peoples with their certainties and gestures, means nothing, affects nothing. Life crawls on, ever on. ~ Steven Erikson

If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning. ~ Albert Camus

We lead a difficult life, not always managing to fit our actions to the vision we have of the world. (And when I think I have caught a glimpse of the color of my fate, it flees from my gaze.) We struggle and suffer to reconquer our solitude. But a day comes when the earth has its simple and primitive smile. Then, it is as if the struggles and life within us were rubbed out. Millions of eyes have looked at this landscape, and for me it is like the first smile of the world. It takes me out of myself, in the deepest meaning of the expression. It assures me that nothing matters except my love, and that even this love has no value for me unless it remains innocent and free. It denies me a personality, and deprives my suffering of its echo. The world is beautiful, and this is everything. The great truth which it patiently teaches me is that neither the mind nor even the heart has any importance. And that the stone warmed by the stone or the cypress tree swelling against the empty sky set a boundary to the only world in which "to be right" has any meaning: nature without men. This world reduces me to nothing. It carries me to the very end. Without anger, it denies that I exist. And, agreeing to my defeat, I move toward a wisdom where everything has already been conquered -- except that tears come into my eyes, and this great sob of poetry which swells my heart makes me forget the truth of the world. ~ Albert Camus

Suddenly absurdism wasn't an intellectual abstraction, it was actually realism. You could see the way that wealth was begetting wealth, wealth was begetting comfort - and that the cumulative effect of an absence of wealth was the erosion of grace. ~ George Saunders

It seemed a ruse that fear of death should be the sole motivation for living and, yet, to quell this fear made the prospect of living itself seem all the more absurd; to extend this further, the notion of living one's life for the purposes of pondering the absurdity of living was an even greater absurdity in and of itself, which thus, by reductio ad absurdum, rendered the fear of death a necessary function of life and any lack thereof, a trifling matter rooted in self-inflicted incoherence. ~ Ashim Shanker