Brian Friel Quotes

The Troubles are a pigmentation in our lives here, a constant irritation that detracts from real life. But life has to do with something else as well, and it's the other things which are the more permanent and real. ~ Brian Friel

Come on man, speak in English.

For the benefit of the colonist?

He's a decent man.

Aren't they all at some level? ~ Brian Friel

Plays by people like Martin McDonagh and Brian Friel attract huge audiences, not because they're Irish, but because they're brilliant plays. ~ Garry Hynes

But remember that words are signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can happen - to use an image you'll understand - it can happen that a civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the landscape of ... fact. ~ Brian Friel

Say anything at all – I love the sound of your speech. ~ Brian Friel

No matter how long the sun may linger on his long and weary journey, at length evening comes with its sacred song. ~ Brian Friel

To remember everything is a form of madness. ~ Brian Friel

Even if I did speak Irish, I'd always be considered an outsider here, wouldn't I? I may learn the password but the language of the tribe will always elude me, won't it? The private core will always be ... hermetic, won't it? ~ Brian Friel

Confusion is not an ignoble condition ~ Brian Friel

I had grandparents who were native Irish speakers, and also, two of the four grandparents were illiterate. ~ Brian Friel

I went on to propose that our own culture and the classical tongues made a happier conjugation [...] English, I suggested, couldn't really express us. ~ Brian Friel

I was a member of the Nationalist Party for several years. I don't remember how long. Those were very dreary days, because the Nationalist Party ... it's hard to describe what it was. I suppose it held on to some kind of little faith, you know? It wasn't even sure what the faith was, and it was a very despised enterprise by everybody. ~ Brian Friel

People talk about the difference between radio acting, TV acting and stage acting, but I think it's all the same. For instance, when I played Vultan in 'Flash Gordon,' I put as much energy into it as I would with 'King Lear' - it's all part of the same thing. ~ Brian Blessed

This is something I learned when I was working at a newspaper: when you put something on paper, whether it's words or pictures, and it's staring back at the reader, they are now alone in the room with them for as long as it takes them to turn the page. Whereas on television, the images fly by. ~ Brian Michael Bendis

I'm very happy to have been a one-club man, but I wouldn't shoot down guys who have gone off and played in multiple clubs either because, essentially, it is an earning that people are after. ~ Brian O'Driscoll

Once upon a time there was a boy who knew what he was going to be from the very moment he was born. As soon as he was able to talk, he told everyone, I am a builder of dreams. No one in his family had any idea what that meant, except maybe his Aunt Dorothy, who knew about dreams & how they form you into the thing you're going to be, even when you think you have other plans.

The rest of his family did things like work with numbers & fix old cars & bake bread in a bakery. When he first told them what he was going to be, they thought it was cute & then, when it didn't stop, it was something not to be mentioned at family gatherings & finally, it was something that would lead to personal suffering if he didn't start getting his head on straight, by god. So, he stopped saying it out loud, but he never forgot & when he got older, he moved away & his family told the neighbors he was working as a manager & every one nodded & was pleased that he'd finally come around to viewing life as it was & not how you wish it would be.

But he didn't really care because he was building things of air & sunlight & the laughter of children & the sharp smell of lighter fluid at a summer barbecue & the flash of color on the throat of a hummingbird & all of them were things that had no real name, but people felt them all the same. They felt them all the same... ~ Brian Andreas

My children don't look Hispanic. ~ Brian Sandoval

Charlie Brown is almost a tragic figure. ~ Brian Walker

Anything is possible when tackling a blank sheet with ink. It's less distracting because I'm away from my computer and all of its convenient diversions. ~ Brian Pinkerton

If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes. ~ Brian Eno

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by my self. ~ Brian Andreas

Sometimes attaining the deepest familiarity with a question is our best substitute for actually having the answer. ~ Brian Greene

Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, blanketing out criticism. Wells was always a critic, even in his most wondrous and romantic tales.

And there, I believe, the two poles of modern fantasy stand defined. At one pole wait Wells and his honorable predecessors such as Swift; at the other, Burroughs and the commercial producers, such as Otis Adelbart Kline, and the weirdies, and horror merchants such as H.P. Lovecraft, and so all the way past Tolkien to today's non-stop fantasy worlders. Mary Shelley stands somewhere at the equator of this metaphor. ~ Brian W. Aldiss

I can get my voicemail transcribed and sent to me as e-mail. I want to be able to have my address book and all my life come up on my TV and video chat. The whole telecommunications experience through a wire is still very relevant. ~ Brian L. Roberts

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks.' ~ Brian Eno

There's nothing greater than a girl ... Well a kid, your daughter, but that's a girl too. ~ Brian Wilson

Science fiction is essentially a kind of fiction in which people learn more about how to live in the real world, visiting imaginary worlds unlike our own, in order to investigate by way of pleasurable thought-experiments how things might be done differently. ~ Brian Stableford

I was so completely anxious before I had a child, but now my biggest worry is something happening to her, so anything other than that I can handle. That's not to say I'm calm, because that would be b****cks! I wish it were the case, but it's getting better as I get older. ~ Anna Friel

This list of names was a record of those that Adam gave the animals in the Garden as an expression of his covenantal dominion, the authority that the namer had over the named. "You have two days," said Yahweh Elohim. Enoch knew the Accuser had no intent of reading the genealogies and names. But even in the face of this obvious stalling tactic, Yahweh Elohim went out of his way to be fair and impartial, even to his own disadvantage. ~ Brian Godawa

60% of the time it works everytime" Brian Fantana. ~ Brian Fantan

Sometimes the best guesses turn out wrong, and the most improbable theories come to pass. ~ Brian Katcher, The Improbable Theory Of Ana And Zak

Superior leaders are willing to admit a mistake and cut their losses. Be willing to admit that you've changed your mind. Don't persist when the original decision turns out to be a poor one. ~ Brian Tracy

It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand. ~ Brian Stimpson, Clockwise
~ John Cleese

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. ~ Brian Tracy

When you buy a jacket, you pick the size to ensure it fits. Similarly, we live in a universe in which the amount of dark energy fits our biological make-up. If the amount of dark energy were substantially different from what we've measured, the environmental conditions would be inhospitable to our form of life. ~ Brian Greene

You better fucking tell us where your little buddies are, or I am going to kick your uterus out, you fucking cunt. ~ Brian Michael Bendis

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image. ~ Brian Tracy

Not merely one of the finest fantasy novels of recent years, but one of the finest ever. Should not be missed ~ Brian Stableford

Instruments sound interesting, not because of their sound, but because of the relationship a player has with them. Instrumentalists build a rapport with their instruments, which is what you like and respond to. ~ Brian Eno

The key to success is to develop a winning edge. ~ Brian Tracy

The central idea of string theory is quite straightforward. If you examine any piece of matter ever more finely, at first you'll find molecules, atoms, sub-atomic particles. Probe the smaller particles, you'll find something else, a tiny vibrating filament of energy, a little tiny vibrating string. ~ Brian Greene

If you don't know the difference between theology and religious
studies, then you're a theologian. ~ Brian Bocking

To the eye a shot is only geometry and yardage and wind, but to a still-beating heart pulling a trigger on another living body and watching it fall is to be avoided, it does not give you a good feeling. If you aren't a psychopath or a male. ~ Brian McGreevy

In the long run, your actions are always congruent with your underlying thinking. ~ Brian P. Moran

Your ability to set goals is the master skill of success. Goals unlock your positive mind and release ideas and energy for goal attainment. Without goals, you simply drift and flow on the currents of life. With goals, you fly like an arrow, straight and true to your target. ~ Brian Tracy

I want students to understand specific technologies, but the real goal is that they should be able to reason about how systems work and be intelligently skeptical about technology so that, when they're running the world in a few years, they'll do a good job. ~ Brian Kernighan

Kids are more drawn to animal characters than human. ~ Brian Jacques

She watched the glass, a plain woman, changing all to the delightful illusion of beauty. There was still time: for her ugliness was destined to bloom late, hidden first by the unformed gawkiness of youth, budding to plainness in young womanhood and now flowering to slow maturity in her early forties, it still awaited the subtle garishness which only decay could bring to fruition: a garishness which, when arrived at, would preclude all efforts at the mirror game. ~ Brian Moore

I threw [Picasso's] drawing on the floor and in doing so, threw away about £50m. ~ Brian Blessed

I think the idea that people walk around to music is very interesting. They are actually creating the soundtrack to their lives as they walk around to it. ~ Brian Eno

Your outrageous and reckless chaos is the only reason you are able to beat me in any strategy game," Seurat said. "It certainly has nothing to do with your innate skills. ~ Brian Herbert

It was my assumption that skilled teachers spent their days imparting important and meaningful knowledge to eager students. I also believed, as many of you do, that I didn't remember or wasn't good at the things we learned in high school because I didn't pay close enough attention or didn't work hard enough. ~ Brian Huskie

Music is one of those things that brings great joy to people, singing is a sort of unifier of people, no matter what political place or original place you come from. ~ Brian Viglione

Dude, are you kidding? You're kinda annoying, but you're probably the only person on Earth who always thinks about other people first. I don't care what shape you are ... you're totally my sister now. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

I'll always be a Backstreet Boy. ~ Brian Littrell

We could give 'Take That' a run for their money. ~ Brian Harvey

The idea of 'machine assemblage' is, especially, very alien to my sensibility, since it suggests a relative indifference of the strata to one another during the process of construction. ~ Brian Ferneyhough

I will be asking my network to lead a discussion on the issues of class, race, energy, the environment, disaster planning, Iraq
all those things and more. This encompasses so many of the major issues of our time. ~ Brian Williams

You don't deserve this, Brian. I wanted to shove that phrase into his heart. But I knew he'd always believe that he did deserve what he got. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz