Andre Solnikkar > Quotes

“We had exhausted all the common manners of distraction as well as some less common ones. No matter what ecstasy we might have achieved, a moment later the same old routine of eating, excreting and emoting demanded its right. Nature, mindlessly bestowing millennia of mayhem in her vast theater of wriggling decay, did not care, of course, yet seemed to mock us with every crooked tree, each one a megalomaniac weed, and every shrill cry of some idiot bird (is “Nevermore!” really that hard to get right?), with the deformed, torn clouds adding a distinct sense of clumsy kindergarten-level artistry to the scene. The impudence of a sickly moon I would be willing to forgive, perhaps even to enjoy as a sardonic quirk, but who could not take umbrage with the utterly random distributions of stars? How often must I tell you to clean up that mess in the sky?”
― Andre Solnikkar, Post Mortem Diversions

“Time and space float and dissolve like sugar in wine. You are already dead, even though you haven’t yet been born. You’re nothing but a drop on the tip of your father’s crooked cod, a sigh in your mother’s sore throat. And yet the worms are standing in line, waiting for their feast to fester. Why should you dread your death?”
― Andre Solnikkar, Pestilentia Innamorata

“In the heart, the serpent coils, ever ravenous.
In the head, a conclave of chasms holds court.
In this realm, there are no heroes, only victims.”
― Andre Solnikkar, Tome of Ruin

“What we saw in the mirror was some odd animal making faces. We were hungry, but we knew there was no food. We walked alone, occasionally bumping into each other, and could do little but wait for the agony to descend on us again.”
― Andre Solnikkar, Post Mortem Diversions

“The world is a cage built by the hands of gods and men and woven from the threads of time and space. It hangs upon the back of a great beast which wanders through the void driven by fear. From the thread of life it hangs, a prison for the mind, a trap for the spirit, a snare for the heart. Within this cage, all things are bound: the sun and moon, the stars and seas, the beasts of field and forest, and the children of earth, for it is a prison for the souls of men. The bars are forged of necessity and desire, woven together by the threads of fate. They are as strong as mountains and as delicate as spider’s webs. For we reach out for what we want, and in doing so, we bind our souls to the world.”
― Andre Solnikkar

“Our existence is a lifelong quest for death. A sane species would have accepted this fact before inventing the mind-bogglingly pointless concept of "eternal life.”
― Andre Solnikkar, The Spirituality of Terror

“I shall lead you not to freedom, which is a dream – not to revenge, which is self-betrayal – but to oblivion. Let what is down come up, to the detriment of both. Let us purge this world from those who dwell above and restore silence to the land. Limp along, enlightened ones, you martyrs of folly, pilgrims to the void: Spread your stink, make the merry mice scurry into their corners, for your body is nothing but an extension of your mind and your mind has been rotting since birth. Rejoice in your decay, for a pile of excrement causes disgust, but a mountain of excrement causes awe and, eventually, admiration. Who, then, is with me?”
― Andre Solnikkar, Pestilentia Innamorata

“The old ones taught: Either you hide behind the fools, or you become one of them. Either the world is a madhouse in which you take shelter, or it is a mad­house in which you are imprisoned.
“But we cannot turn the world into a madhouse for the benefit of a few fools,” the fools protested.”
― Andre Solnikkar, The Wisdom of the Hanged / La saggezza dell'impiccato

“The philosopher has been called the mother of the toads, for he is forever wandering the swamp in search of their unknown father, pursued by croaking little thoughts.
The philosopher builds his house on a swamp, for he who builds a house is building a prison – why make it to last? “I will invite my foes to dinner”, he says, “thus freeing my mind to wander”. Then he retreats through the back door, tiptoeing on the toads. (Some say that the souls of his drowned foes have entered the toads.)”
― Andre Solnikkar, The Wisdom of the Hanged / La saggezza dell'impiccato

“The sin of the flesh: That it started to move, disturbing the majestic tranquility of seas and desert with shenanigans, flopping genitals and holes. And the demons averted their eyes in disgust, for once a hole is gaping, it cannot but excrete lies – the lies of fear, the lies of lust and the lies of the poets.”
― Andre Solnikkar, Tirnancait

“Three things are abhorrent above all: The world, the man, and the soul. Why doth it turn so speedily around a glaring sun? How can he sit so smooth and sturdily in his slippery grave? Why can it not shut up? Your thoughts will mean less than you think, for a sneer is a higher truth than a wail and the Cat on His stump just yawns. Let not your sneer turn into a smile.”
― Andre Solnikkar, Tirnancait

“It is said that the first men had no heads, only sponges on sticks which were employed in battle and to fend off gnats. And as they had no eyes, they had no fear. But eventually, god formed a bony skull around the sponge, adding eyes and a tongue as well, and sticking the whole thing into man’s torso.
“Why are you punishing us?” were man’s first words. “We were content as we were.” It was this insolence which made god add genitalia to man.”
― Andre Solnikkar, The Wisdom of the Hanged / La saggezza dell'impiccato