#surrealism

Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life. ↗

— Olga Grushin

#novel #surrealism #change

A stubborn refusal of the conditions of 20th Century 'reality', surrealism has denied intransigently and consistently that modern man can live without a sense of wonder at the world that was once embodied in myth. In approaching literature, it has aimed at restoring to the word its magical qualities. And at giving back to language the elemental power it once had within society. This determinism lies at the heart of the surrealist attitude and distinguishes it radically from the modernism which took shape contemporaneously with it. ↗

— Michael Richardson

#literature #magic #modernism #myth #surrealism

Possible reality [is obtained] by slightly bending physical and chemical laws. ↗

— Marcel Duchamp

#artists #creativity #surrealism #art

I spoke fire, laughed smoke, and madness spilled forth from my inspiration. ↗

— Arthur Holitscher

#artists #creativity #surrealism #writers #writing

Equally, the surrealists consider words as witnesses of life acting in a direct way in human affairs. To use words properly it was necessary to treat them with respect, for they were the intermediaries between oneself and the rest of creation. To abuse them was immediately to set oneself adrift from true being. Words need to be coaxed to reveal a little of their true nature, so as to close the breach that exists between the writer and the universe. The world is not something alien against which man is in conflict. Rather man and cosmos exist in reciprocal motion. We are not cast adrift in an alien or meaningless environment. The universe is intimate with us and, as Breton insisted, it is a cryptogram to be deciphered. ↗

— Michael Richardson

#language #poetry #surrealism #words #world

We can sum up the surrealist distinction between 'literature' and 'poetry' by saying where the former is artificial, fictive and elusive, the latter is natural, real, direct and spontaneous. ↗

— Michael Richardson

#poetry #surrealism #nature

Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light. ↗

— Jyrki Vainonen

#artists #creativity #surrealism #writers #writing

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision. ↗

— Salvador Dali

#destroys #destructive #limiting #only #our

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality. ↗

— John Lennon

#effect #great #great effect #had #i

yes, i have dated Salvador Dali guy when i was a high school girl. he was a great lover. but i had to dump him because he stole my inspiration of bent clock*~* .... who cares... ↗

— Hiroko Sakai

#artwork #bent-clock #funny #humorous #painting