The Impossible Quotes

“Incredible nervous state, trepidation beyond words: to be this much in love is to be sick (and I love to be sick).”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“The owl flies, in the moonlight, over a field where the wounded cry out.

Like the owl, I fly in the night over my own misfortune.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“These moments of intoxication, when we defy everything, when, the anchor raised, we go merrily toward the abyss, with no more thought for the inevitable fall than for the limits given in the beginning, are the only ones when we are completely free of the ground (of laws) …

Nothing exists that doesn’t have this senseless sense - common to flames, dreams, uncontrollable laughter - in those moments when consumption accelerates, beyond the desire to endure. Even utter senselessness ultimately is always this sense made of the negation of all the others. (Isn’t this sense basically that of each particular being who, as such, is the senselessness of all the others, but only if he doesn’t care a damn about enduring - and thought (philosophy) is at the limit of this conflagration, like a candle blown out at the limit of a flame.)”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“Realism gives me the impression of a mistake. Violence alone escapes the feeling of poverty of those realistic experiences. Only death and desire have the force that oppresses, that takes one's breath away. Only the extremism of desire and death enable one to attain the truth.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“I entered into this darkness where, ever since, I plunge deeper every hour and lose myself a little more.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“I already knew this immense tenderness, which is only the last degree of sorrow… I knew then, already, that the intimacy of things is death.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“Poetry reveals a power of the unknown. But the unknown is only an insignificant void if it is not the object of a desire. Poetry is a middle term, it conceals the known within the unknown: it is the unknown painted in blinding colors, in the image of a sun.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“I approach poetry: but only to miss it.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“Poetry removes one from the night and the day at the same time. It can neither bring into
question nor bring into action this world that bids me.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“Poetic delirium has its place in nature. It justifies nature, consents to embellish it. The refusal belongs to clear consciousness, evaluating whatever occurs to it.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia

“A poet doesn’t justify-he doesn't accept-nature completely. True poetry is outside laws. But poetry ultimately accepts poetry.”
― Georges Bataille, The Impossible: A Story of Rats followed by Dianus and by The Oresteia