John Osborne Famous Quotes
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Heroes, whatever high ideas we may have of them, are mortal and not divine. We are all as God made us and many of us much worse.
I must be the luckiest man in the world. Not only am I bisexual, I am also Welsh.
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.
[Time Magazine, October 31, 1977]
Alison: I don't think I want anything more to do with love. Any more. I can't take it on.
Cliff: You're too young to start giving up. Too young, and too lovely.
Anyone who's never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity. For twelve months, I watched my father dying - when I was ten years old.
Jimmy: (in a low, resigned voice) They all want to scape from the pain of being alive. And, most of all, from love. ( ... ) It's no good to fool yourself about love. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands.
Go on - but don't think you can kill my confidence. I've had experts doing it for years.
A refined sort of butcher, a woman is.
We all of us waited for him to die. The family sent him a check every month, and hoped he'd get on with it quietly, without too much vulgar fuss.
That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's does it?
Jimmy: The injustice of it is almost perfect! The wrong people going
hungry, the wrong people being loved, the wrong people dying!
George Bernard Shaw writes like a Pakistani who has learned English when he was twelve years old in order to become an accountant.
It's no good fooling about with love you know. You can't fall into it like a soft job without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. If you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, tidy soul, you better give up the whole idea of life and become a saint, because you'll never make it as a human being. It's either this world ... or the next.
The whole point of a sacrifice is that you give up something you never really wanted in the first place. People are doing it around you all the time. They give up their careers, say - or their beliefs - or sex.
To be as vehement as he is is to be almost non-committal.
Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week's. Different books same reviews.
The schoolteacher is certainly underpaid as a childminder, but ludicrously overpaid as an educator.
You see I learnt at an early age what it was to be angry - angry and helpless. And I can never forget it. I knew more about - love ... betrayal ... and death, when I was ten years old than you will probably ever know in your life.
Asking a working writer what he feels about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.
In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.
I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age - unless you're an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans.
And even in the hatred of the majority, there's a kind of triumph because I know that, although they'd never admit it, they secretly respect me.
It is easy to answer the ultimate questions - it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.
It is widely held that too much wine will dull a man's desire. Indeed it will in a dull man.
Writers don't need love; all they require is money.
I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong.
Royalty is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay
Laughter's the nearest we ever get, or should get, to sainthood. It's the state of grace that saves most of us from contempt.
How I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm- that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! I'm alive! I've an idea. Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive. Just for a while. What do you say? Let's pretend we're human."
― John Osborne, Look Back in Anger
Don't be afraid of being emotional. You won't die of it.
It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.
Jimmy: You'll end up like one of those chocolate merengues my wife is so fond of [Alison starts banging jars] ... sweet and sticky on the outside, and sink your teeth in it [savouring every word]-inside, all white, messy and disgusting. [offering teapot sweetly to Helena] Milk?
They spend their time looking forward to the past.
The British public has always had an unerring taste for ungifted amateurs.