Quotes from Alfred Jarry

Papa Ubu: Yes, gentlemen, but however beautiful it may be, it can't compare with Poland. Because if there weren't any Poland, there wouldn't be any Poles!

Maintenant que la glace est rompue, causons." (Now the ice is broken, let's talk.) -After shooting into a mirror

and he had to have freedom-not even that, just to read and sleep in peace, without a uniform-sooner still.

The military hospital is the most cheerful of militaty buildings because there are so few uniforms inside.

JARRY: (To audience) As to the action which is about to begin, it takes place in Poland - that is to say, nowhere.

Papa Ubu: Captain Bordure, I've decided to make you Duke of Lithuania.

Si longue que soit la vie, elle n'est qu'un long retard de la mort

Simplicity does not need to be simple. Instead it should be forged of complexity that has been compressed and synthesized.

As to the action which is about to begin, it takes place in Poland – that is to say, nowhere

He's not a man, he's a machine.

Ah, crap! Isn't Wrong worth the same as Right?

If I ever meet him in a dark alley he'll have one hell of a fifteen minutes.

O! cette ville n'est remarquable que parce qu'elle est composée de maisons comme toutes les villes et que toutes ses maisons ressemblent à toutes les maisons! ...pas curious du tout / La vérité me force? Nous sommes les hommes libres! Nous devons donc désobéir, même à la vérité.

The virtue of dress rehearsals is that they are a free show for a select group of artists and friends of the author, and where for one unique evening the audience is almost completely expurgated of idiots.

Blind and unwavering undisciplined at all times constitutes the real strength of all free men.

We believe... that the applause of silence is the only kind that counts.

God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.

We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings.

It is conventional to call 'monster' any blending of dissonant elements. I call 'monster' every original inexhaustible beauty.

The work of art is a stuffed crocodile.

Talking about things that are understandable only weighs down the mind.

La mort n'est que pour les me diocres. Death is only for the mediocre.

The theater, bringing impersonal masks to life, is only for those who are virile enough to create new life: either as a conflict of passions subtler than those we already know, or as a complete new character.

To be weird! That is my goal!