Grotesque Quotes

• Life is but a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream.

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Crazy, Mad

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• For me the grotesque is necessary to understand beauty.

  David Altmejd

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• A man without passion would be like a body without a soul. Or even more
  grotesque, like a soul without a body.

  Edward Abbey

  Passion, Men, Soul

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.9, RosettaBooks

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• As a means of contrast with the sublime, the grotesque is, in our view, the richest source that nature can offer.

  Victor Hugo

  Mean, Views, Sublime

  Victor Hugo (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)”, p.12464, Delphi Classics

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• Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

  Oscar Wilde

  Men, Insulting, Sometimes

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1035, GENERAL PRESS

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• The noble grotesque involves the true appreciation of beauty.

  John Ruskin

  Beauty, Appreciation, Noble

  John Ruskin (1853). “The Stones of Venice: The fall”, p.160

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• Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought.

  Mark Twain

  Atheist, Atheism, Vagrants

  The Mysterious Stranger ch. 11 (1916)

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• Wherever the human mind is healthy and vigorous in all its proportions, great in imagination and emotion no less than in intellect, and not overborne by an undue or hardened pre-eminence of the mere reasoning faculties, there the grotesque will exist in full energy.

  John Ruskin

  Imagination, Healthy, Mind

  John Ruskin, John D. Rosenberg (1964). “The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings”, p.214, University of Virginia Press

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• Nothing is more witty and grotesque than ancient mythology and Christianity; that is because they are so mystical.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Witty, Literature, Good Christian

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• There is but one step from the grotesque to the horrible.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Steps, Horrible

  1917 His Last Bow,'Wisteria Lodge'.

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• As a kid, I couldn't articulate it but I sought out things that could. At first it was horror films - extreme panic and terror, grotesque and maniacal. These films calmed me and made me feel more connected in my experiences.

  Tony Burgess

  Kids, Panic, Firsts

  Interview with Jonathan Ball, logger.believermag.com. August 31, 2015.

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• If you want to see eccentricities, I'll be grotesque before your eyes.

  Michael Jackson

  Eye, Insanity, Want

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• Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Two, Quality, Fundamentals

  Charles Baudelaire, Keith Waldrop (2006). “The Flowers of Evil”, p.26, Wesleyan University Press

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• All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Twilight, Fog, Action

  Carl von Clausewitz, Michael Howard, Peter Paret (1989). “On War”, p.140, Princeton University Press

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• In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back.

  Thomas Keneally

  Australia, Catholic, Landscape

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• All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque, just because they are men; and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is, was, and shall be.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Respect, Artist, Men

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• The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Men, Literature

  John Ruskin (2015). “The Stones of Venice”, p.226, John Ruskin

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• I'm not sure I agree with the thesis, because I think that even though something grotesque or gross has been part of film since way back, what we accept or what we can get away with on the screen is broader now.

  Ivan Reitman

  Thinking, Way, Film

  Interview with Joshua Klein, www.avclub.com. May 17, 2000.

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• What motivates me in art is the ugly and beautiful nature of the truth. It has to be truthful and honest, even if it is ugly and grotesque.

  Corin Nemec

  Beautiful, Art, Ugly

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Travel, Stars, Fall

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• The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque.

  Ron Wyden

  Ideas, Atrocities, Ridiculous

  "Amid furor, Pentagon kills terrorism futures market". www.cnn.com. July 30, 2003.

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• I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.

  Alexander McQueen

  Artist

  "The Real McQueen" by Susannah Frankel, www.harpersbazaar.com. April 1, 2007.

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• Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.

  H. L. Mencken

  Family, Cousin, Men

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.15, Vintage

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• Anyone who tells you they know the future is telling you the most grotesque lie, because none of us do.

  Tim Waterstone

  Lying, Knows

  "Tim Waterstone: 'If reading is going be all digital in 50 years, so be it'" by John Harris, www.theguardian.com. April 9, 2013.

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• There is beautiful in the grotesque.

  Guillermo del Toro

  Beautiful

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