Quotes from Eugene Ionesco

I love you, sweetheart, love you to distraction. Poor darling, don't worry! That's what she said when she left me. She turned and went, in her blue dress, the smile of love on her lips. Oh! If only it would leave me, that vision of parting grace! She could not tear her love from her heart, from her heart she could not tear it, never from her heart could such love be torn, never, never, never!

JEAN: I promise you'll recognize her by her smile. No-one smiles like her. She's on the tall side, I think, and she has long arms. But you'll recognize her too by the look of wonder on her face at finding herself here . . . She'll close her eyes a minute because the light's too strong. She'll ask you if I've been here if you've seen me, if anyone's waiting for her.

Her eyes . . . What's the colour of her eyes . . . ? JEAN : Misty eyes . . . no, black . . . no, very bright . . . and penetrating . . . no, elusive . . . with a present, no, absent look, the colour of certain dreams, as gentle as the touch of a warm river in summer. You see? She's easy to recognize!

I'll recognize her by the way she's trying to recognize me. Lost memories will guide her.

I've known him so long, since the world began. And I'm joined to him for all eternity. Why do these bonds seem like chains to him? All I want is to call his name and hear him answer.

Your hold on me is great. But the universe is greater, and what I need is greater still.

Is all this an image of time? Everything disintegrates before our very eyes.

And all I long for is the dawn!

Eh oui, je rêve...la vie est un rêve.

1st KEEPER: Who said nobody and nothing could ever belong to us? 2nd KEEPER: What a breach between heart and head! 1st KEEPER: What a contradiction! 2nd KEEPER: He doesn't believe what he thinks or think what he believes.

Ce matin, quand tu t'es regardé dans la glace tu ne t'es pas vu. C'est parce que je n'étais pas encore là. (IX, 59)

Dans la vie, il faut regarder par la fenêtre. (XI, 61)

I've longed for fulfillment and all I find is torment. I had to choose between peace and passion. I chose passion, fool that I was!

Mijnheer Smith: Eén ding begrijp ik niet. Waarom zetten ze in de krant onder de burgerlijke stand altijd wèl de leeftijd van mensen die gestorven zijn en nooit die van pasgeborenen! Dat is onzin.

What's chivalrous about saying you've seen a rhinoceros?

When I was born, I was almost fourteen years old. That's why I was able to understand more easily than most what it was all about.

He would say ect. instead of ect., and thus instead of ect., instead of ect. and thus and so forth!

A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing, or thinking about writing.

C'est pour cela que les jeunes se suicident ou qu'on les tue. Ainsi on les cloue dans leur jeunesse pour toujours, dans les panoplies de l'éternité.

AMÉDÉE: Slavery has been abolished, my love . . . MADELEINE: I'm not your love . . . AMÉDÉE: Slaves belong to the past . . . MADELEINE: Well, I'm a modern slave, then!

I look out the chair while eating my pillow. I open the wall, I walk with my ears. I have ten eyes to walk with and two fingers to look with. I put my head on the floor to sit down, I put my bottom on the ceiling. After eating the music box, I spread jam on the rug for a great dessert.

Like all revolutions, the surrealist revolution was a reversion, a restitution, an expression of vital and indispensable spiritual needs.

I just can't get used to life.

Woe betide the man who refuses to conform.