Benjamin Péret > Quotes

“Is it by chance that the 18th century of France, the century of the "philosophy of enlightenment," did not produce any poets except the Marquis de Sade, who -- despite his participation in the events of this epoch -- expressed the first violent protest against the essential postulates of this period?”
― Benjamin Péret, A Menagerie in Revolt: Selected Writings

“A suicide is always, for those close to the deceased, a tragic and agonising event; but when it is accomplished by means of jam, one cannot be less than terrified.”
― Benjamin Péret, Death to the Pigs and Other Writings

“Through his pierced brain the breezes sang Will you drop dead you pig of a sell-out But from the sky as black as the forehead of his fathers no crayfish came to the aid of his lobsters”
― Benjamin Péret

“Sometimes the dolls of the Hopi Indians of New Mexico have heads which represent, schematically, a medieval castle. I shall try to enter that castle. There are no doors; the ramparts have the thickness of a thousand centuries. It is not in ruins, as you might think.”
― Benjamin Péret, A Menagerie in Revolt: Selected Writings

“The marvelous, I say again, is all around, at every time and in every age. It is, or should be, life itself, as long as that life is not made deliberately sordid as this society does so cleverly with its schools, religion, law courts, war occupations and liberations, concentration camps and horrible material and mental poverty. And yet, I remember, it was in Rennes prison where they had me locked up in May 1940, because I had committed the crime of thinking such a society was my enemy, unless it was simply because it had forced me like so many others to defend it twice in my life when I felt nothing in common with it.”
― Benjamin Péret, Death to the Pigs and Other Writings

“A sexual desire holds no interest for me unless it is accompanied by love, and for love I would leave everything.”
― Benjamin Péret