Talk:Salvador Dalí

Re the madman quote: I seem to remember seeing a documentary called The Essential Dali or something, where he said something like that. But it was more like, "The difference between Dali and the crazy man is that Dali, is not, crazy!". He spoke in English in the third person, with that weird inflection. Maybe he said the quote as it's given on the page, too, but I thought I'd bring it up. -- Merphant

the quote is on thinkexist.com but the spam filter won't allow me to cite it!! Chrismorey (talk) 08:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Problems

It seems like there are some problems here

• "In le subconscious you fuck ugly people, never beautiful, because la libido always desires something repulsive."
• "I like it, le murder, because this is courage. It is anti-bourgeois. Le murder is closer to heaven, because after becoming rrrremords de conscience, one prays, one opens le sky, and le angels say, “Good morning!”"

--Dannycas 00:50, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Duplicates

The following quotation appears, in various forms, three times on this page: "Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dali, and I ask myself, wonderstruck, what prodigious thing will he do today, this Salvador Dali." Do we really need all three variations? -- (The writer known on EN as llywrch) 01:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Mexico Quote

"No volveré a venir a un país que es mas surrealista que mis pinturas" translated: "I will not go again to a country that is even more surreal than my paintings"

Unsourced

Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable and precise source for any quote on this list please move it to Salvador Dalí.

• No volveré a venir a un pais que es más surrealista que mis pinturas.
  • I will not return to a country that is more surrealistic than my paintings.
  • Said after visiting Mexico

• El problema de la juventud de hoy es que uno ya no forma parte de ella.
  • The problem with today's youth is not being a part of it anymore.

• Muchas personas no cumplen los ochenta porque intentan durante demasiado tiempo quedarse en los cuarenta.
  • Many people do not reach their eighties because they try to stay in their forties too long.

• Picasso es pintor, yo también; Picasso es español, yo también; Picasso es comunista, yo tampoco.
  • Picasso is a painter, so am I; Picasso is Spanish, so am I; Picasso is a communist, neither am I.

• Pintar un cuadro es o muy sencillo o imposible.
  • To paint a picture is either very simple or impossible.

• A los tres años quería ser cocinero. A los cinco quería ser Napoleón. Mi ambición no ha hecho más que crecer ahora sólo quiero ser Salvador Dalí y nada más. Por otra parte, esto es muy difícil, ya que, a medida que me acerco a Salvador Dalí, él se aleja de mí
  • When I was three years old, I wanted to be a cook. When I was five, I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambition has done nothing but grown, and now I only want to be Salvador Dalí and nothing more. On the other hand, this is very difficult, now that, as I approach Salvador Dalí, he gets farther away.

• I love Gala so much, if she dies I will eat her.he was the best artist in the world.

• In the pretext of the academic being detestable, the worst in the class was made a hero! He opens the door to the ethics of shit! Newness at whatever cost and art becomes just a latrine!

• I tried sex once with a woman and that woman was Gala. It was overrated. I tried sex once with a man and that man was the famous juggler Federico Garcia Lorca [the Spanish Surrealist poet]. It was very painful.

• The difference between Dalí and the crazy man is that Dalí, is not crazy!
  • Variant: The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad. [see here]
  • Alternatively: The difference between me and a madman is the madman thinks that he is sane. I know that I am mad. (as on the wall of the Dalí universe exhibition, london, 2006)

• What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.

• You have the lips of the pharmacist of Figueres (telling to Mae West and speaking about the pharmacist and philosopher of the history Alexandre Deulofeu).

• I believe in general in death but in the death of Dali absolutely not. I believe in my death becoming very -- almost impossible.

• El canibalismo es una de las manifestaciones más evidentes de la ternura.
  • Cannibalism is a sure sign of affection.

• El que quiere interesar a los demás tiene que provocarlos.
  • He who wishes to interest other people needs to provoke them.

• ...Es curioso, a mi me interesa mucho mas hablar, o estar en contacto con la gente que piensa lo contrario de lo que yo pienso, que de los que piensan lo mismo que pienso yo.
  • ...It's strange, but I'd much rather talk with or be in touch with people who think the opposite of what I think than with those who think the same as I do.

• Es fácil reconocer si el hombre tiene gusto: la alfombra debe combinar con las cejas.
  • It's easy to tell if a man has good taste: his carpet should harmonize with his eyebrows.

• De ninguna manera volveré a México. No soporto estar en un país más surrealista que mis pinturas.
  • Under no circumstances will I return to Mexico. I cannot bear to be in a country more surreal than my own paintings.

• Hoy, el gusto por el defecto es tal que sólo parecen geniales las imperfecciones y sobre todo la fealdad. Cuando una Venus se parece a un sapo, los seudoestetas contemporáneos exclaman: ¡Es fuerte, es humano!
  • Today, a taste for the defective is so strong that the only things that seem attractive are imperfections and, above all, ugliness. When a Venus looks like a toad, the pseudo-aesthetes of today shout: "That's great, that's human!"

• La Revolución Rusa es la Revolución Francesa que llega tarde, por culpa del frío.
  • The Russian Revolution is the French Revolution arriving late due to the cold.

• La única diferencia entre un loco y Dalí, es que Dalí no está loco.
  • The only difference between a madman and Dalí is that Dalí is not mad.

• La vida es aspirar, respirar y expirar.
  • To live means to aspire, to respire and to expire.

• Lo importante es que hablen de ti, aunque sea bien.
  • What's important is that people talk about you, even if they only say good things.

• Lo único de lo que el mundo no se cansará nunca es de la exageración.
  • The only thing the world never tires of is exaggeration.

• ¡No podéis expulsarme porque Yo soy el Surrealismo!
  • You cannot expel me: I am Surrealism! (After being expelled from the surrealist movement in Paris.)

• Picasso es pintor. Yo también. Picasso es español. Yo también. Picasso es comunista. Yo tampoco.
  • Picasso is a painter. So am I. Picasso is a Spaniard. So am I. Picasso is a communist. Neither am I.

• Sin una audiencia, sin la presencia de espectadores, estas joyas no alcanzarían la función para la cual fueron creadas. El espectador, por tanto, es el artista final. Su vista, corazón, mente — con una mayor o menor capacidad para entender la intención del creador — da vida a las joyas.
  • Without an audience, without a circle of spectators, these jewels would never realize the purpose for which they were created. The spectator is therefore the final artist. His eyes, his heart, his mind — whether better or worse equipped to understand the purpose of the creator — give life to the jewels.

• Llamo a mi esposa: Gala, Galuska, Gradiva; Oliva por lo oval de su rostro y el color de su piel; Oliveta, diminutivo de la oliva; y sus delirantes derivados: Oliueta, Oriueta, Buribeta, Buriueteta, Siliueta, Solibubuleta, Oliburibuleta, Ciueta, Liueta. También la llamo Lionette, porque cuando se enfada ruge como el león de la Metro-Goldwyn Mayer.
  • I call my wife Gala, Galuska, Gradiva; Oliva for her oval face and the colour of her skin; Oliveta, diminutive of Oliva; and its delirious derivations: Oliueta, Oriueta, Buribeta, Buriueteta, Siliueta, Solibubuleta, Oliburibuleta, Ciueta, Liueta. I also call her Lionette, because when she's angry she roars like the MGM lion.

• Sólo hay dos cosas malas que pueden pasarte en la vida, ser Pablo Picasso o no ser Salvador Dalí.
  • There are only two things that can go wrong for you in life: being Pablo Picasso or not being Salvador Dalí.

• Si muero, no moriré del todo.
  • If I die, I will not die completely. (Compare Horace's Non omnis moriar, "I will not wholly die.").

• La inteligencia sin ambición es un pájaro sin alas.
  • Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

• No tengas miedo de la perfección, nunca la alcanzarás.
  • Don't be afraid of perfection, because you'll never achieve it.

• Para comprar mis cuadros hay que ser criminalmente rico como los norteamericanos.
  • To buy my paintings you have to be criminally rich like the Americans.

• Hay días en que pienso que voy a morir de una sobredosis de satisfacción.
  • There are days when I think that I will die of an overdose of satisfaction.

• El termómetro del éxito no es más que la envidia de los descontentos.
  • The thermometer of success is nothing more than the envy of the discontent.

• Lo menos que puede pedirse a una escultura es que no se mueva.
  • The least that one can ask of a sculpture is that it stays still.

• Mientras estamos dormidos en este mundo, estamos despiertos en el otro.
  • When we are asleep in this world, we are awake in another.

• Los que no quieren imitar nada, no producen nada.
  • Those who refuse to imitate will never create.

• Las guerras nunca han hecho daño a nadie, excepto a la gente que muere.
  • Wars have never done harm to anyone, except to those who die.

• Gustar el dinero como me gusta, es nada menos que misticismo. El dinero es una gloria.
  • To relish money as I do is nothing short of mysticism. Money is a glory.

• La existencia de la realidad es la cosa más misteriosa, más sublime y más surrealista que se dé.
  • The existence of reality is the most mysterious, most sublime and most surrealist thing of all.

Quotes from The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (Dali, 1942, Trans. Haakon Chevalier)

I'm just dropping some quotes here as I read through the book. At a later date, I will go through and judge if any are worthy of inclusion on the main-namespace page. 142.25.33.124 03:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

P1: "At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since."

P4: "One single being has reached a plane of life whose image is comparable to the serene perfections of the Renaissance, and this being happens to be precisely Gala, my wife, whom I had the miracle to choose. She is composed of those fleeting attitudes, of those Ninth-Symphony-like facial expressions, which, reflecting the architectonic contours of a perfect soul, become crystallized on the very shore line of the flesh, at the skin's surface, in the sea foam of the hierarchies of her own life, and which, having been classified, clarified by the most delicate breezes of the sentiments, harden, are organized, and become architecture in flesh and bone. And for this reason I can say of Gala seated that she resembles perfectly, that she is posed with the same grace as, Il Tempietto di Bramante near the church of San Pietro in Montorio at Rome; for, like Stendhal in the Vatican, I too can measure exactly the slim columns of her pride, the tender and stubborn banisters of her childhood, the divine stairways of her smile."

P6: "One thing, at least, is certain: everything, absolutely everything, that I shall say here is entirely and exclusively my own fault."

To add more later....

P7: "Fortunately I am not one of those beings who when they smile are apt to expose remnants, however small, of horrible and degrading spinach clinging to their teeth. This is not because I brush my teeth better than others; it is due to the much more categorical fact that I do not eat spinach. It so happens that I attach to spinach, as to everything more or less directly pertaining to food, essential values of a moral and esthetic order. And of course the sentinel of disgust is ever on hand, vigilant and full of severe solicitude, ceremoniously attentive to the exacting choice of my foods." (I like to eat only things with well-defined shapes that the intelligence can grasp. I detest spinach because of its utterly amorphous character, so much that I am firmly convinced, and do not hesitate for a moment to maintain, that the only good, noble and edible thing to be found in that sordid nourishment is the sand.)

Damn. This whole work is wholly brilliant. I do not think I can be trusted to the process of picking terse and appropriate quotes, as I seem to want to transcribe the whole body of the work....