Absurd Quotes - Page 28

• Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter.

  Thomas Paine

  Atheist, Heart, Mean

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• This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother’s crazy. He thinks he’s a chicken. The doctor says, Well, why don’t you turn him in? And the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. Well I guess that’s pretty much how I feel about relationships. You know they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd but I guess we keep going through it because, uh, most of us need the eggs.

  Woody Allen

  Witty, Brother, Crazy

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• It's quite possible we may actually be looking at some kind of super-sanity here. A brilliant new modification of human perception, more suited to urban life at the end of the twentieth century...He creates himself each day. He sees himself as the lord of misrule and the world as a theatre of the absurd.

  Grant Morrison

  Perception, Theatre, May

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• The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, '2001' shows that what some people call 'god' is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call 'god' -Stanley Kubrick, interview, 1963

  Stanley Kubrick

  Ignorance, Ideas, People

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• We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe.

  Julio Cortazar

  Believe

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• The trouble is that people seem to expect happiness in life. I can't imagine why; but they do. They are unhappy before they marry, and they imagine to themselves that the reason of their unhappiness will be removed when they are married.

  Nancy Mitford

  Believe, People, Unhappy

  "Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie".

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• Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

  Oscar Wilde

  Reading, Culture, Half

  Oscar Wilde (1899). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.10

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• How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.

  Kristin Cashore

  Girl, Strong, Fighting

  Kristin Cashore (2009). “Graceling”, p.398, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• he looked to her like an absurd twentieth-century Hamlet, an indecisive figure so mesmerized by onrushing tragedy that he was helpless to divert its course or alter it in any way.

  Stephen King

  Tragedy, Way, Indecisive

  STEPHEN KING (1977). “THE SHINING”

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• The mind, placed before any kind of difficulty, can find an ideal outlet in the absurd. Accommodation to the absurd readmits adults to the mysterious realm inhabited by children.

  Andre Breton

  Children, Mind, Adults

  Andre Breton, Mark Polizzotti (1997). “Anthology of Black Humor”, p.104, City Lights Books

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• I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.

  Albert Camus

  Heart, Echoes, Absurdity Of Life

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.21, Vintage

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• Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.

  W. H. Auden

  Selfish, Stupid, Voice

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• If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason.

  Blaise Pascal

  Two, Principles, Ridiculous

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• It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.

  John Updike

  Lying, Deceit, Lateness

  "Couples". Book by John Updike, 1968.

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• Travel was pointless. It removed you from the place in which you had a meaning, and to which you gave meaning in return by dedicating your life to it, and it spirited you away into fairylands where you were, and looked, frankly absurd.

  Salman Rushdie

  Return, Spirited, Pointless

  "The Shelter of the World". www.newyorker.com. February 25, 2008.

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• life is a story and god is author.life is absurd.I think so.

  Albert Camus

  Thinking, Stories, Life Is

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• Only Christ could have brought us all together, in this place, doing such absurd but necessary things.

  Kathleen Norris

  Together, Christ, Necessary Things

  Kathleen Norris (1997). “The Cloister Walk”, p.56, Penguin

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• Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Powerful, Book, Writing

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings”, p.13, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It is clearly absurd to limit the term 'education' to a person's formal schooling.

  Murray Rothbard

  Limits, Formal, Term

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• Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Dream, Thinking, People

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2009). “The Shadow Of The Wind”, p.254, Hachette UK

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• How absurd these words are, such as beast and beast of prey. One should not speak of animals in that way. They may be terrible sometimes, but they're much more right than men...They're never in any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don't flatter and they don't intrude. They don't pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky.

  Hermann Hesse

  Life, Stars, Flower

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• The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be believed only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance, called faith.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religious, Pain, Ignorance

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1990). “On The Gods and Other Essays”

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• Maybe we all have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong. But this culture is fences, and the swimming brood climbs up only to fall back. Might it not be that in the dark pools of some men the evil grows strong enough to wriggle over the fence and swim free? Would not such a man be our monster, and are we not related to him in our own hidden water? It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

  John Steinbeck

  Strong, Fall, Angel

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• But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.

  Agatha Christie

  Innocent Person, Murder, Human Nature

  Agatha Christie (1974). “Murder in the Calais Coach”, Simon & Schuster of Canada, 1940

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• I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.

  Oscar Wilde

  Attitude, Air, Expression

  Oscar Wilde (2017). “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, p.54, Pan Macmillan

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