{"quotes":[{"text":"BERENGER: And you consider all this natural? \u2028\u2028DUDARD: What could be more natural than a rhinoceros? \u2028\u2028BERENGER: Yes, but for a man to turn into a rhinoceros is abnormal beyond question. \u2028\u2028DUDARD: Well, of course, that's a matter of opinion ... \u2028\u2028BERENGER: It is beyond question, absolutely beyond question! \u2028DUDARD: You seem very sure of yourself. Who can say where the normal stops and the abnormal begins? Can you personally define these conceptions of normality and abnormality? Nobody has solved this problem yet, either medically or philosophically. You ought to know that. \u2028\u2028BERENGER: The problem may not be resolved philosophically -- but in practice it's simple. They may prove there's no such thing as movement ... And then you start walking ... [he starts walking up and down the room] ... And you go on walking, and you say to yourself, like Galileo, 'E pur si muove' ... \u2028\u2028DUDARD: You're getting things all mixed up! Don't confuse the issue. In Galileo's case it was the opposite: theoretic and scientific thought proving itself superior to mass opinion and dogmatism. \u2028\u2028BERENGER: [quite lost] What does all that mean? Mass opinion, dogmatism -- they're just words! I may be mixing everything up in my head but you're losing yours. You don't know what's normal and what isn't any more. I couldn't care less about Galileo ... I don't give a damn about Galileo. \u2028\u2028DUDARD: You brought him up in the first place and raised the whole question, saying that practice always had the last word. Maybe it does, but only when it proceeds from theory! The history of thought and science proves that. BERENGER: [more and more furious] It doesn't prove anything of the sort! It's all gibberish, utter lunacy! \u2028\u2028DUDARD: There again we need to define exactly what we mean by lunacy ... \u2028\u2028BERENGER: Lunacy is lunacy and that's all there is to it! Everybody knows what lunacy is. And what about the rhinoceroses -- are they practice or are they theory?","author":"Eugène Ionesco","tags":["absurd","mass-opinion","practice","theory","truth"],"id":925,"author_id":"Eug%C3%A8ne+Ionesco"},{"text":"Applaud my idiocy.","author":"Conan O'Brien","tags":["absurd","life"],"id":4006,"author_id":"Conan+O%27Brien"},{"text":"When all else fails, there's always delusion.","author":"Conan O'Brien","tags":["absurd","life"],"id":16606,"author_id":"Conan+O%27Brien"},{"text":"I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.","author":"W.H. Auden","tags":["absurd","life","writing"],"id":22966,"author_id":"W.H.+Auden"},{"text":"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.","author":"Niels Bohr","tags":["absurd","humour","truth","wisdom"],"id":30584,"author_id":"Niels+Bohr"},{"text":"My joy is that there is no such world at all, but that the substance of life is in everyone! There is no reason to be troubled because we are absurd, is there? For we really are: we are absurd, frivolous, we have bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look around ourselves, we don't know how to understand, we are all like this, all of us, you, and I, and everyone! And you aren't offended by my telling you straight to your faces that you are absurd? There is the basic stuff of life in your, isn't there? You know, I believe it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous. Yes, much better. People forgive each other more readily and become more humble, we can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection! To reach perfection there must first be much we do not understand. And if we understand too quickly we will probably not understand very well. I tell this to you who have been able to understand so much and - do not understand.'p. 577.","author":"Fyodor Dostoyevsky","tags":["absurd","absurdity","meaning-of-life","ridiculousness","understanding-life"],"id":34785,"author_id":"Fyodor+Dostoyevsky"},{"text":"In Newcastle, Kurt announced from the stage, “I am a homosexual, I am a drug user, and I fuck pot-bellied pigs,” another classic Cobainism, though only one of his three claims was true.","author":"Charles R. Cross","tags":["absurd","humour","profane","surreal"],"id":35926,"author_id":"Charles+R.+Cross"},{"text":"No peace is possible between the novelist and the agélaste [those who do not laugh]. Never having heard God's laughter, the agélastes are convinced that the truth is obvious, that all men necessarily think the same thing, and that they themselves are exactly what they think they are. But it is precisely in losing the certainty of truth and the unanimous agreement of others that man becomes an individual. The novel is the imaginary paradise of individuals. It is the territory where no one possesses the truth, neither Anna nor Karenin, but where everyone has the right to be understood, both Anna and Karenin.","author":"Milan Kundera","tags":["absurd","art","essay","individual","laughter","novel","truth","uncertainty","uniformity"],"id":36164,"author_id":"Milan+Kundera"},{"text":"Word of advice for any young man that might want to take out Malia or Sasha Obama - Their father can order an assassination, don't piss him off.","author":"David C. Holley","tags":["absurd","advice","assassination","awkward","humor","obama","piss-off"],"id":37302,"author_id":"David+C.+Holley"},{"text":"I just can't listen to any more Wagner, you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.","author":"Woody Allen","tags":["absurd","humor","music"],"id":43911,"author_id":"Woody+Allen"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":133,"pages":14,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}