"What is a monster? A being whose duration is incompatible with the existing order."
Denis Diderot
"Mary Shelley does something that a conservative would never have done. In the central part of her book, she allows the monster to speak for himself, to tell the story from his own perspective. Her choice expresses the liberal attitude to freedom of speech at its most radical: everyone’s point of view should be heard. The criminal can victimize himself."
Slavoj Zizek
"Supposing a painter chose to put a human head on a horse's neck, or to spread feather of various colours over the limbs of several different creatures, or to make what in the upper part is a beautiful woman tail off into a hideous fish, could you help laughing when he showed you his efforts?"
Horace
"I am a philosopher of the monstruous..."
Peter Sloterdijk
"We believe the sky is going to fall on our head if we meddle with the body."
Orlan
"On the one hand, the spectators feel shocked and deny what they see; on the other, they are fascinated because someone violates him/herself voluntarily and because the action conjures up taboos of torture and physical punishment. Spectators are fascinated and shocked by their own curiosity since, according to cultural norms, they should feel disgust or horror."
Erika Fischer-Lichte
"The birth of a monster is a failure of nature herself and threaten our faith in the basic soundness of what grows... Distortions are comments on nature that may provoke indignation. But the monster creates anxiety because it shows reality itself at a fault."
Rudolf Arnheim
"The best way, it seems to me, to realize the idea of danger on the stage is by the objective unforeseen, the unforeseen not in situations but in things, the abrupt, untimely transition from an intellectual image to a true image..."
Artaud
