Toni Andre

“Without you what shall I do with my abiding love of genius, in whose name I have at least been able to attempt a few acknowledgments here and there? I flatter myself I know where genius is, almost what it consists of, and I held it capable of conciliating all the other great passions with itself. I believe blindly in your genius. Reluctantly, sadly, I withdraw this word, if it shocks you. But in that case, I prefer to banish it altogether. Genius ... what could I still expect from the few possible intercessors who have appeared to me under this sign, and which, at your side, I have ceased to possess!

Without doing it on purpose, you have taken the place of forms most familiar to me, as well as several figures of my foreboding.

All I know is that this substitution of persons stops with you, because [and this is my favorite part!] nothing can be substituted for you, and because for me it was for all eternity that this succession of terrible or charming enigmas was to come to an end at your feet.

You are not an enigma for me.
I say that you have turned me from engimas forever.
Since you exist, as you alone know how to exist ..”
― André Breton

“…I know that if I were mad, after several days of confinement I should take advantage of any lapses in my madness to murder anyone, preferably a doctor, who came near me. At least this would permit me, like the violent, to be confined in solitary. Perhaps they’d leave me alone.”
― André Breton, Nadja

“Whose hearts must I break? What lies must I maintain? - Through whose blood am I to wade ?”
― Arthur Rimbaud

“I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naivety has no peer but my own.”
― Andre Breton