Grotesque Quotes

“I know, you were much closer to the painter than any of us. In spite of that, your lips, too, will want to curl up into a smile. There are levels of tragedy whose mind-numbing properties can only be checked by laughter, and what story does not contain an inkling of the grotesque? When we Germans will have learnt to laugh like the Gauls, we will truly be the rulers of this earth; even more so than before, one might add.""John Hamilton Llewellyn's End”

“In order to induce the process of decay, water is necessary. I think that, in the case of women, men are the water.”

“We could go so far as to say that it is the human condition to be grotesque, since the human animal is the one that does not fit in, the freak of nature who has no place in the natural order and is capable of re-combining nature's products into hideous new forms.”

“Why is it only now that I can see how many ordinary things are actually grotesque?”

“The mixture of the grotesque and the tragic is agreeable to the spirit, as are discords to the jaded ear.”

“These tears I'm wailing,I spill not without reason.Remove them, my dearest love.Take me to the place I've been dreaming of,where the grotesquely lonely meet the grotesquely lonelyand they whisper,just very softly,Please be mine, Dearest Love.”

“O sleep! ridiculous mystery which makes faces appear so grotesque, you are the revealer of human ugliness. You uncover all shortcomings, all deformities and all defects. You turn every face touched by you into a caricature.”

“The extent of God’s grace always eclipses the extent of my grotesqueness. Therefore, I can never be bad enough for God to tell me that He’s had enough.”

“Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.”