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. – Antonin Artaud
I myself spent nine years in an insane asylum and I never had the obsession of suicide, but I know that each conversation with a psychiatrist, every morning at the time of his visit, made me want to hang myself, realizing that I would not be able to cut his throat. – Antonin Artaud
But how is one to make a scientist understand that there is something unalterably deranged about differential calculus, quantum theory, or the obscene and so inanely liturgical ordeals of the precession of the equinoxes. – Antonin Artaud
No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell. – Antonin Artaud
If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, youre out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung. If you think you need stuff to play music or sing, youre crazy. It can fix you so you cant play nothing or sing nothing. – Billie Holiday