Alfred Jarry

French writer, novelist, playwright, anarchist, freelance scoundrel, proto-surrealist inventer of Pere Ubu and of Pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions and the laws governing exceptions.

"Nous sommes libres de faire ce que nous voulons, même d’obéir ; d’aller partout où il nous plaît, même en prison! La liberté, c’est l’esclavage!" (We are free to do as we please, even free to obey, free to go everywhere we want, even to prison! True freedom lays in slavery!) - 'Ubu Enchainé' (1899)

"The great merit of 'Pataphysics is to have confirmed that there is no metaphysical justification for forcing everybody to believe in the same absurdity, possibilities for the absurd and in art are legion. The only logical deduction that can be made from this principle is the anarchist thesis: to each his own absurdities. The negation of this principle is expressed in the legal power of the state, which forces all citizens to submit to an identical set of political absurdities." - from 'Pataphysics - A Religion In The Making' by Asger Jorn, originally appeared in 'Internationale Situationniste' No.6 (August 1961)