#grotesque

The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it's grotesque. ↗

— Ron Wyden

#betting #federal #grotesque #idea #parlor

In the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as a truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were the truths and they were all beautiful. [...] There was the truth of virginity and the truth of passion, the truth of wealth and of poverty, of thrift and of profligacy, of carelessness and abandon. Hundreds and hundreds were the truths and they were all beautiful. And then the people came along. Each as he appeared snatched up one of the truths and some who were quite strong snatched up a dozen of them. It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood. ↗

— Sherwood Anderson

#grotesque #truth #truths #beauty

Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#creativity #fantasy #grotesque #irony #novel

Nothing is more beautiful than freedom, and nothing more grotesque than its molestation. ↗

— Bryant McGill

#grotesque #molestation #beauty

Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself. ↗

— H. L. Mencken

#caricatures #cousins #especially #every #every man

The art which we may call generally art of the wayside, as opposed to that which is the business of men's lives, is, in the best sense of the word, Grotesque. ↗

— John Ruskin

#best #business #call #generally #grotesque

He pictures amputated human arms flopping like fish down the center of the road; syringes floating on beds of liposuctioned fat; gelatinous human eyeballs wiggling merrily as they roll down the highway; and so on. He could imagine other such grotesque stuff, but chooses not to. ↗

— Dan Chaon

#grotesque #limbs #imagination

Taxes are like abortion, and not just because both are grotesque procedures supported by Democrats. You're for them or against them. Taxes go up or down; government raises taxes or lowers them. But Democrats will not let the words "abortion" or "tax hikes" pass their lips. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#against #because #both #democrats #down

Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic. ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#southern-writing #mystery

People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something. ↗

— Soren Kierkegaard

#birds #breeds #commonly #existence #fall