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Surrealism Quotes

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Surrealism Quotes

“Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation... A way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings.”

WayHumansSchoolOrderLanguageMovementReturnFoundationInnocenceLiberationRevolutionaryPoetry IsRenewalSurrealismPact
Book:Alternating Current
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“I have always enjoyed dealing with a slightly surrealistic situation and presenting it in a realistic manner. I've always liked fairy tales and myths, magical stories. I think they are somehow closer to the sense of reality one feels today than the equally stylized 'realistic' story in which a great deal of selectivity and omission has to occur in order to preserve its 'realist' style.”

ThinkingFeelsStoriesRealityTodayOrderDealsSituationStyleMythTalesEnjoyedPreservesFairyRealisticFairy TalePresentingRealistSurrealismOmissionSurrealist
Author:Stanley Kubrick
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“The vice named surrealism is the immoderate and impassioned use of the stupefacient image or rather of the uncontrolled provocation of the image for its own sake and for the element of unpredictable perturbation and of metamorphosis which it introduces into the domain of representation; for each image on each occasion forces you to revise the entire Universe.”

UseUniverseForceElementsSakeVicesOccasionsIntroducingRepresentationUnpredictableDomainSurrealismMetamorphosisProvocationImpassioned
Author:Louis Aragon
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“Painting, by its nature, cannot provide an object of simultaneous collective reception... as film is able to do today... And while efforts have been made to present paintings to the masses in galleries and salons, this mode of reception gives the masses no means of organizing and regulating their response. Thus, the same public which reacts progressively to a slapstick comedy inevitably displays a backward attitude toward Surrealism.”

GivingMeanHas BeensMadeTodayAbleFilmEffortAttitudeComedyObjectsPaintingMassResponseCollectivesDisplayGallerySurrealismReceptionSimultaneousSalonsSlapstick
Author:Walter Benjamin
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“When I write my novels, I'm not writing them to make political points. I'm writing them because I passionately love monsters and the weird and horror stories and strange situations and surrealism, and what I want to do is communicate that. But, because I come at this with a political perspective, the world that I'm creating is embedded with many of the concerns that I have. But I never let them get in the way of the monsters.”

WorldWayWantWritingStoriesPoliticalSituationNovelStrangePerspectiveHorrorCreatingConcernCommunicateMonstersEmbeddedSurrealismHorror Stories
Author:China Mieville
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“It was an honor to work with Samantha Morton on this Casablanca-esque, silent-film-esque, Americana photobooth Woolworth's hay day period piece of surrealism/ realism/ story time tell-tale-ism, black and white 35 mm film, washed in strange light, over this love hate tune, heartbreak song, life-goes-on lullaby, The Last Goodbye. It's a doorway into the future of the fatal past-tense. Get it?”

StoriesLightLastsPastFilmHateSongBlackWhitePiecesStrangeGoes OnHonorPeriodsSilentTalesGoodbyeTunesBlack And WhiteRealismTenseDoorwaysLove HateSurrealismIsmsLife Goes OnHayLullabyAmericanaSilent FilmsSamanthaLast Goodbye
Author:Alison Mosshart
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“Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principle problems of life.”

PlayProblemDreamRealityFormCertainBeliefPrinciplesSuperiorsRuinsSubstitutesAssociationMechanismPsychicsNeglectedSurrealismOmnipotenceDisinterested
Author:Andre Breton
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“Of all the questions I'm asked, the most difficult is, "How does it feel to be famous?" Since I'm not, that question always catches me with a feeling of surrealism....I've got three kids and I've changed all their diapers, and when it's two o'clock in the morning and you're changing something that's sort of special delivery with one eye open and one eye shut you don't feel famous.”

FeelsDoeTwoFeelingsEyeKidsThreeDifficultMorningSpecialChangedClockDeliverySurrealismDiapersCatch MeI've Changed
Author:Stephen King
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“On the other hand, Surrealism has been a part of Romanian literature since forever. Even before Tzara, who was originally Romanian, we had Urmuz, who was a surrealist before the term even existed. During Breton's era too, there was a very active Romanian Surrealist group (Ghérasim Luca, Gellu Naum, etc.) closely related to the French. They had to quit their activities as soon as the Soviet communists took over.”

Has BeensHandsLiteratureTermForeverGroupsActivityActiveQuittingErasRelatedEtcCommunistSovietSurrealismSurrealist
Author:Dumitru Tepeneag
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“Seine et Danube was launched in 2003 with the help of Romanian authorities who had finally realized the necessity of promoting literature and Romanian culture in general. Along with focusing on the literature of the countries the Danube traversed (with an emphasis on Romania), we printed work that interested us from the banks of the Seine: French and French-Romanian authors like Cioran and Fondane. We dedicated our last edition to surrealism and Esthetic Onirisme.”

CountryHelpingLastsCultureLiteratureAuthorityDedicatedEmphasisPromotingPrintedSurrealismRomaniaDanube
Author:Dumitru Tepeneag
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“Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay is a stylistically daring writer in love with surrealism, credited with being 'the woman who reintroduced hardcore sexuality to Bengali literature'. But though the (male) establishment used this label of erotica to dismiss her work, the sex scenes have exactly the same transgressive function as her use of chronology and narrative voice.”

UseUsedLiteratureSexVoiceSceneFunctionMalesSexualityLabelsNarrativeEstablishmentDaringSurrealismHardcoreBengaliChronologyNarrative Voice
Author:Deborah Smith
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“I was interested in the ways that artists responded to totalitarianism - the Czech Jazz Section, Romanian absurdist theatre, Brecht's alienation effect. The anything-goes, anarchic qualities of jazz and Surrealism seemed to offer a way to cross some of the forbidden frontiers of Eastern Europe.”

WayArtistQualityEffectsOffersEuropeCrossesJazzTheatreSectionsEasternForbiddenAlienationFrontiersTotalitarianismSurrealismEastern EuropeCzechAnything GoesBrecht
Author:Nicholas Royle
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“To be honest, I wasn't crazy about the kind of poetry I found in high school English books. I didn't get really excited about poetry until I discovered Lorca in college. If it wasn't for surrealism, I'm not sure I'd have become so involved in poetry. I was attracted by the extravagant imagery and elements of fantasy. This was in the '70s and it seemed to fit the psychedelic mood of the times. I found it liberating.”

IfsKindBookSchoolFoundFantasyCrazyHonestCollegeInvolvedFitElementsHigh SchoolExcitedMoodBeing HonestNot SureLiberatingImageryGet RealPsychedelicSurrealismExtravagantLorcaSchool English
Author:Elaine Equi
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“In the past things were either in your head (subjective, imaginary, fantasy) or else they were part of the outside world - cold, hard, concrete materialistic reality. If you want to look at it in terms of poetry, there was surrealism and objectivism. Now there's the veil of the virtual in between. The old opposition between inner and outer doesn't quite capture it, especially as it contains elements of both. It's real but not concrete.”

IfsWorldWantLooksRealHardRealityPastTermFantasyColdElementsOppositionCaptureConcreteImaginaryVeilsSubjectiveMaterialisticOutside WorldSurrealismObjectivism
Author:Elaine Equi
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“The Limits Of Control is not surrealism, but it is an experiment in which expectations are deliberately removed: expectations for narrative form, for action in a film, for certain emotional content. We wanted to remove those things and see if we could still make a film that was a beautiful film experience, with deliberately removing things many people would expect.”

PeopleIfsStillsActionWantedBeautifulFilmFormCertainEmotionalLimitsExpectationsExperimentsNarrativeRemoveSurrealism
Author:Jim Jarmusch
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