Quotes from Roland Topor

Look at me, I'm not worthy of your anger, I'm nothing but a dumb animal who can't prevent the noisy symptoms of his decay, so don't waste your time with me, don't dirty your hands by hitting me, just try to put up with the fact that I exist. I'm not asking you to like me, I know that's impossible, because I'm not likeable, but at least do me the kindness of despising me enough to ignore me

Pewnego dnia, gdy ojciec, pijany bardziej ni? zwykle, wbi? mi w?a?nie w czo?o gruby gwó?d? i zawiesi? na nim obraz, który o?mieli?em si? skrytykowa?, powiedzia?em sobie w duchu: "By?oby pocieszaj?ce, gdyby zjawi?a si? wró?ka i odstawi?a ten numer z trzema ?yczeniami.

By all accounts, my left foot has something very feminine about it. It's curvy, like Suzanne. The flesh is milky, and the skin is delicate just like the skin on Suzanne's temples, with the veins clearly marked in blue. The nails are pearly, the toes long and dainty like fingers. The instep has none of the unattractiveness so evident in other parts of my body. It has an elegance shared only with Suzanne.

Ideolog na czworakach kieruje swoje deklaracje wreszcie do w?a?ciwej cz??ci cia?a tych, których próbuje przekona?.

When he lifted the cover of one of the trash cans, before emptying the contents of his own pail into it, he was always astonished by its neatness and order. His own trash was the most indecent collection in the entire building. Repugnant and despicable. There was no resemblance between it and the honest, day-to-day trash of the other tenants. That had a solid, respectable appearance, and his did not.

Lying in bed with his eyes open, he searched the shadows around him, trying to find some steadying, reassuring objects. But the reality was at least as threatening as the nightmares. Having swallowed up all of the familiar shapes of the furniture, the darkness took on the aspect of some unearthly challenge: within this nothingness something monstrous and unknown was surely being spawned. The room had become a kind of breeding ground for monsters.

Why is my skull covered with hair? To make it look like my genitals?

I'm absolutely alone in this strange city, and I have a bad foot. I don't dare even move for fear of precipitating yet another crisis. I breathe softly, and think carefully. No sudden ideas, the shock could be fatal. It's a poor kind of protagonist really who just lies around on his bed.

He was perfectly conscious of the absurdity of his behavior, but he was incapable of changing it. This absurdity was an essential part of him. It was probably the most basic element of his personality.

His stomach turned inside out, like a glove, and he vomited. It wasn't disagreeable at all. Almost like a liberation, in fact. A kind of suicide, in a way. These particles of matter that showered from his mouth, after he had thought them consumed and digested, did not disgust him. No, he was completely indifferent to them; and to everything else, for that matter. It was only when he vomited that he could be indifferent even to life itself.

Trelkovsky had never undestood why people insisted on comparing the noise of birds to music. Birds don't sing, they scream. And in the morning they scream in chorus.

Already, he was not entirely Trelkovsky any more. But what was Trelkovsky? How could he learn the answer to that? He had to discover himself, so that he could be sure he would not wander from the right path. But how?

Hundert gute Gründe, mich auf der Stelle umzubringen 1. Die beste Art, um sicherzugehen, dass ich nicht schon tot bin. 2. Die letzte Volkszählung wird dann nicht mehr stimmen. 3. Unter der Erde wartet man nur noch auf mich, um mit dem Feiern anzufangen. (...)

He considered both doctors and nurses as monsters of insensitivity, in spite of the fact that he admired their devotion to duty.

My spirit is incapable of raising itself up from the floor. Divine gravity dictates this law to me: as my body resides at ground level, there must my soul rot.

I pace up and down from one wall to the other talking to myself like a patient in a mental hospital. That naked body I catch sight of every time I pass the mirror makes me feel like throwing up. The grey flesh with its covering of black hairs somehow attracts me and disgusts me at the same time.

A long time ago I learned to fear pains that arise at the top of my body, toothaches or migraines, but now I have discovered the extraordinary range of the information network. Somewhere, far away from my brain, a piece of leather is cutting into my heel, but even so my brain receives the information perfectly.

My left foot is the best part of me. It's Suzanne.

Other people aren't like me in the slightest, I find. I admit though I prefer to know they are happy, just to be on the safe side. If not, they can be dangerous. I don't like seeing their blood, not at all, nor their guts, all that disgusts me. And if anyone deserves pity, it's me. The others will have to manage by themselves. They weren't any worse off before I was born, and they won't be any better off after I'm dead.

From now on, I shall only have eyes for my right foot!

One gram of shit is enough to ruin a kilogram of caviar. One gram of caviar does nothing to improve a kilogram of shit.