44 Quotes by Andrei Codrescu

Still, there is something disappearing from the world, something composed of many instances of tradition and skill, or maybe not disappearing, but translating. Maybe culture, like physical matter, doesn’t disappear, but is subject to infinite play, and th e world is a vast workshop for making and remaking everything, including people, and the engine of play is desire…

Nosferatu is the daddy of modern American sex.

The difference between a modern artist and a Buddhist monk is in the approach. The artist goes into the void empt and returns with a souvenir, if you will. The monk approaches the void with a traditional body of knowledge and arrives at emptiness. Our world, no less than that of the monks, is full of junk that gets in the way of spiritual practice. The artist plays with the junk, the monk orders it into nothingness.

The icons light up on his laptop, e-mail invites him to grow his penis, enlarge his breasts, refinance his house. All is well in the world.

It is the job of the market to turn the base material of our emotions into gold.

Our secrets, odd or not, are the pins that keep our inner life in place: the inform our psyche with meaning.

The fact is we all know that there exists in the world an order different from that in which we pass our days. If we reveal its existence people think that we are crazy.

The peasants of all lands recognize power and they salute it, whether it's good or evil.

Most artists don't get paid for what they do, and they are lucky if they can persuade a friend to let them show something at a kid's birthday party.