Andre Breton
Andre Breton
André Bretonwas a French writer, poet, anarchist and anti-fascist. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifestoof 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth19 February 1896
CountryFrance
Andre Breton quotes about
existence surrealism elsewhere
It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.
love-you eggs sea
I love you on the surface of seas Red like the egg when it is green
ends breaths
...with the end of my breath, which is the beginning of yours.
mind states state-of-mind
Dada is a state of mind.
god religious shady
For me, the single word "God" suggests everything that is slippery, shady, squalid, foul, and grotesque.
silly eye games
A game: say something. Close your eyes and say something. Anything, a number, a name. Like this (she closes her eyes): Two, two what? Two women. What do they look like? Wearing black. Where are they? In a park. . . . And then, what are they doing? Try it, it's so easy, why don't you want to play? You know, that's how I talk to myself when I'm alone, I tell myself all kinds of stories. And not only silly stories: actually, I live this way altogether.
hands levels crowds
The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd. Anyone who, at least once in his life, has not dreamed of thus putting an end to the petty system of debasement and cretinization in effect has a well-defined place in that crowd with his belly at barrel-level.
eye mirrors roles
The eye is not open when it is limited to the passive role of a mirror... if it has only the capacity to reflect.
past two intellectual
Past and future monopolize the poet’s sensory and intellectual faculties, detached from the immediate spectacle. These two philtres become utterly clear the moment one stops being hypnotized by the cloudy precipitate constituted by the world of today.
beach stars eye
What’s the good of these great fragile fits of enthusiasm, these jaded jumps of joys? We know nothing anymore, but the dead stars; we gaze at their faces; and we gasp with pleasure. Our mouths are dry as the lost beaches, and our eyes turn aimlessly and without hope. Now all that remain are these cafés where we meet to drink these cool drinks, these diluted spirits, and the tables are stickier than the pavements where our shadows of the day before have fallen.
mirrors black firsts
It was in the black mirror of anarchism that surrealism first recognised itself.
knowing rely ifs
Who am I? If this once I were to rely on a proverb, then perhaps everything would amount to knowing whom I 'haunt.'
soul limbo
I am the soul in limbo.
stupid bored age
It is hard not to see into the future, faced with today's blind architecture - a thousand times more stupid and more revolting than that of other ages. How bored we shall be inside!