Grotesque Quotes

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

  Mark Twain

  Dream, Crazy, Mad

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• The moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it histruth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced a falsehood.

  Sherwood Anderson

  People, Moments, Falsehood

  1919 Winesburg, Ohio,'The Book of the Grotesque'.

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• Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to make it look expensive. I find it grotesque when clothes hit you in the face and there's no room for fault. But I don't expect to turn things around all by myself. I'm not a saint.

  Alexander McQueen

  Clothes, Kitchen, Saint

  "Remembering Alexander McQueen". Interview with Karl Plewka, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 1997.

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• The true grotesque being the expression of the repose or play of a serious mind, there is a false grotesque opposed to it, which is the result of the full exertion of a frivolous one.

  John Ruskin

  Expression, Play, Mind

  John Ruskin (2015). “The Stones of Venice”, p.244, John Ruskin

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• Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Southern, Realistic, Cases

  "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" (1960)

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• I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.

  Aubrey Beardsley

  Aim, Ifs

  In an interview with The Idler (1896),as quoted in "Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography" by Matthew Sturgis, (p. 309), 1999.

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• The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.

  H. L. Mencken

  Men, Astrology, Games

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.261, Vintage

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• When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock -- to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Mean, Talking, Vision

  Flannery O'Connor (1983). “Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise blood, The violent bear it away, Everything that rises must converge”, Signet Classics

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• To speak of God, to think of God, is in every respect to show what one is made of. I have always wagered against God and I regard the little that I have won in this world as simply the outcome of this bet. However paltry may have been the stake (my life) I am conscious of having won to the full. Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, vile, polluted and grotesque is summoned up for me in that one word: God!

  Andre Breton

  God, Thinking, Atheism

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• I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.

  John Ruskin

  Believe, Greatness, Men

  John Ruskin (2013). “The Stones of Venice -: The Fall”, p.158, Cosimo, Inc.

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• I strenuously object to the very word "grotesque" which has become hackneyed to the point of nausea...I would prefer my music to be described as "Scherzo-ish" in quality, or else by three words describing the various degrees of the Scherzo - whimsicality, laughter, mockery.

  Sergei Prokofiev

  Laughter, Quality, Nausea

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• Why was the human race created? Or at least why wasn't something creditable created in place of it? God had His opportunity. He could have made a reputation. But no, He must commit this grotesque folly - a lark which must have cost Him a regret or two when He came to think it over and observe effects.

  Mark Twain

  Regret, Opportunity, Thinking

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain’s Letters & Speeches (Annotated Edition)”, p.787, Jazzybee Verlag

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• The way corporate media likes to portray America is as a homogenous whole that high-five's each other at the Super Bowl. But what we have is a grotesque disparity between the rich and poor that is only getting wider.

  Tom Morello

  Media, America, Way

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• I envy people who can just look at a sunset. I wonder how you can shoot it. There is nothing more grotesque to me than a vacation.

  Dustin Hoffman

  Sunset, Vacation, People

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• I have to be careful to get out before I become the grotesque caricature of a hatchet-faced woman with big knockers.

  Jamie Lee Curtis

  Age, Bigs, Hatchet

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• Taxes are like abortion, and not just because both are grotesque procedures supported by Democrats. You're for them or against them. Taxes go up or down; government raises taxes or lowers them. But Democrats will not let the words "abortion" or "tax hikes" pass their lips.

  Ann Coulter

  Government, Abortion, Lips

  "Put the tax cut in a lock box" by Ann Coulter, townhall.com. February 21, 2002.

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