You can be sure it is the enemies of order who are circulating this elixir of the absolute. They sneak it past the guards in the form of books, poems. The harmless pretext of literature allows them to offer this deadly brew at a price defying all competition.

Buy, buy the damnation of your soul. You will destroy yourself at last, here is the machine for capsizing your mind. I announce to the world this page one headline: a new vice has been born, one more madness has been given to man: Surrealism, son of frenzy and darkness. Step right up, here is where the kingdoms of the instantaneous begin.

– Louis Aragon, 1924

The heart of a human being can be broken and books can get old, and everything must, outwardly, die, but a power which is in no way supernatural makes of this very death the condition of renewal. It assures all exchanges ahead of time, that nothing precious may be lost within and through the obscure metamorphoses, from season to season, the butterfly regains its exalting colors.

– Andre Breton, 1945