Maldoror and Poems Quotes

“I am filthy. I am riddled with lice. Hogs, when they look at me, vomit. My skin is encrusted with the scabs and scales of leprosy, and covered with yellow pus.[...] A family of toads has taken up residence in my left armpit and, when one of them moves, it tickles. Mind one of them does not escape and come and scratch the inside of your ear with its mouth; for it would then be able to enter your brain. In my right armpit there is a chameleon which is perpetually chasing them, to avoid starving to death: everyone must live.[...] My anus has been penetrated by a crab; encouraged by my sluggishness, he guards the entrance with his pincers, and causes me a lot of pain.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“It is not right that everyone should read the pages which follow; only a few will be able to savour this bitter fruit with impunity. Consequently, shrinking soul, turn on your heels and go back before penetrating further into such uncharted, perilous wastelands. Listen well to what I say: turn on your heels and go back, not forward,[...]”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“When one wants to be famous, one has to dive gracefully into rivers of the blood of cannon-blasted bodies.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“One should let one's nails grow for a fortnight. O, how sweet it is to drag brutally from his bed a child with no hair on his upper lip and with wide open eyes, make as if to touch his forehead gently with one's hand and run one's fingers through his beautiful hair. Then suddenly, when he is least expecting it, to dig one's long nails into his soft breast, making sure, though, that one does not kill him; for if he died, one would not later be able to contemplate his agonies. Then one drinks his blood as one licks his wounds; and during this time, which ought to last for eternity, the child weeps.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“Oh incomprehensible pederasts, I shall not heap insults upon your great degradation; I shall not be the one to pour scorn on your infundibuliform anus. It is enough that the shameful and almost incurable maladies which besiege you should bring with them their unfailing punishments.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“Alas! alas!" the naked woman exclaimed. "What have you done?"

I said to her: "I prefer you to him. Because I pity the unhappy. It is not your fault eternal justice has created you."

And she said: "One day men will do me justice; I will say no more to you. Let me go and hide my infinite sadness at the bottom of the sea. Only you, and the hideous monsters who swarm in those black depths do not despise me. You are good. Adieu, you who have loved me."

I, to her: " Adieu, once more adieu! I will always love you. From today, I abandon virtue.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“However, throughout the centuries, man has considered himself beautiful. For my part, I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride; that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself; for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn?”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems

“...steer clear of the love of dark sorceresses.”
― Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror and Poems