Best Absurdist Quotes & Sayings

Extremely self-conscious in its craft, in many ways The Hand of Ethelberta is an exploration of fiction as illusion, which involves parody of the conventions it employs; romance, melodrama and farce, and a rejection of realism for absurdist and surrealistic effects. The 'hand' of Ethelberta is an obvious, ironic allusion to courtship, and the sub-title, 'A Comedy in Chapters', suggests the novel's affinity with the conventions of Restoration and eighteenth-century comedy of manners. — Geoffrey Harvey

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. — Nicholas Royle

Before I speak, I have something important to say. — Groucho Marx

Television wasn't getting rid of animals, but they were no longer cast as creatures that were omniscient and heroic. They were talking horses like Mr Ed or an absurdist pig like Arnold Ziffle ... Just like the heroic animals in silent films became comedians in talkies, animals on television were becoming jesters, something Rin Tin Tin had never been. — Susan Orlean

He tapped into the Zen of ignorance, the enlightenment of absurdity. — Christopher Moore

But it is obvious that absurdism hereby admits that human life is the only necessary good since it is precisely life that makes this encounter possible and since, without life, the absurdist wager would have no basis. To say that life is absurd, the conscience must be alive. — Albert Camus

The final conclusion of absurdist reasoning is, in fact, the repudiation of suicide and the acceptance of the desperate encounter between human inquiry and the silence of the universe. Suicide would mean the end of this encounter, and absurdist reasoning considers that it could not consent to this without negating its own premises. — Albert Camus

Hackle may be the best absurdist story writer working today. — Bradley Sands

Since I came at 'Godot' from a God-based frame of mind, it didn't strike me as absurdist. It struck me as characters waiting for proof of God's existence. — Michael Schultz

I think I'm more of an absurdist than a satirist. I think I'm more of a - humanist? I hate to say it! — Mike White

The reason why Absurdist plays take place in No Man's Land with only two characters is primarily financial. — Arthur Adamov

Are you an evolutionist?
I'm an absurdist, ma'am. But let's suppose evolution is true; what about the monkeys today? Why can't we see them evolving? Are they still evolving? — Harrison Wheeler

I love the absurd - kind of absurdist comedy, absurd things in life. — Rose McGowan

Could it be, I wonder, that there is such a thing as a wantologist, someone we can hire to figure out what we want? Have I arrived at some final telling moment in my research on outsourcing intimate parts of our lives, or at the absurdist edge of the market frontier? — Arlie Russell Hochschild

I don't actually have anything against anybody, unless their belief precludes everybody else's ... I am an atheist and an absurdist and I have been for many years. I've actually taken a huge amount of flack for that. — Joss Whedon

The final conclusion of the absurdist protest is, in fact, the rejection of suicide and persistence in that hopeless encounter between human questioning and the silence of the universe. — Albert Camus

I think absurdist humor is funny ... — Aziz Ansari

So many American plays are about family. When you're in the first part of your life, you write about family a lot. I find with my absurdist plays that I was actually writing about my family, but so disguised I didn't realize it myself. — Christopher Durang

Long before the Theater of the Absurd, Woolrich discovered that an incomprehensible universe is best reflected in an incomprehensible story.
("Introduction") — Francis M. Nevins Jr.

Personally I always preferred Lipton's. — Samuel Beckett

I always feel in a funny place when I'm really asked to inform people, so I just try to take the more absurdist route - like, "this is how you could do it, but it's actually turning into a cat now. This might happen at home I guess, but it probably won't." — Thu Tran

Every well-thought-out rebuttal to dogma, every scrap of intelligent logic, every absurdist reduction of some bullying stance is the antidote. — George Sanders

I don't watch reality TV, my reality is tough enough. — Alisa Steinberg

Like the playwrights of the Absurd, Woolrich recognized that a senseless story best mirrors a senseless existence. — Francis M. Nevins Jr.

The absurdist stuff wasn't terribly popular at the time I was doing it. — Robert Sheckley

The absurdist is concerned with the search for meaning in the Universe. He believes this search to be meaningless
hence the disintegration of plot, character, and language in absurdist drama. Order is a falsehood that we, God, those who came before us, have imposed on a random universe. However, the absurdist is confronted with a curious paradox: though he believes the Universe to be meaningless, he cannot abandon the search for meaning
or he will die. — Walter Wykes

Since I was both an atheist and an absurdist, I had decided that the most absurd thing I could do would be to develop an intimate relationship with the God I didn't believe in. — Paul Krassner

There are so many stories to tell in the worlds of science fiction, the worlds of fantasy and horror that to confine yourself to even doing historical revisionist fiction, whatever you want to call it - mash-ups, gimmick lit, absurdist fiction - I don't know if I want to do that anymore. — Seth Grahame-Smith