Comic Opera Quotes

Whatever comes, I'll take the good--and send the rest to hell. ~ Ignaz Schnitzer

Georges Kopp, on his periodical tours of inspection, was quite frank with us. 'This is not a war,' he used to say, 'it is a comic opera with an occasional death. ~ George Orwell

I ended my statement to the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always does; he always does! ~ Theodore Roosevelt

In vain I warned other Arab leaders, those pleasure-seeking gluttons who only listen to the fawning and simpering of those who owe them favors. There was a full complement of them at Cairo, lined up like onions, spying on each other on the sly, half of them so conceited they could not stop behaving like constipated patriarchs, the other half too thick to be able to look serious. Arrivistes who thought they had really arrived, comic-opera presidents unable to shake off their country-bumpkin reflexes, petrodollar emirs looking like rabbits straight out of the magician's hat, sultans wrapped in their robes like ghosts, disgusted at the blathering eulogies the speakers were trotting out ad infinitum. Why were they there? They cared for nothing that did not concern their personal fortunes. Busy stuffing their pockets, they refused to look up to see how dizzyingly fast the world was changing or how tomorrow's storm clouds of hate were gathering on the horizon. ~ Yasmina Khadra

In 1857, Bizet departed for Rome and spent three years there. He studied the landscape, the culture, Italian literature and art. Musically he studied the scores of the great masters. At the end of the first year he was asked to submit a religious work as his required composition. As a self-described atheist, Bizet felt uneasy and hypocritical writing a religious piece. Instead, he submitted a comic opera. Publicly, the committee accepted, acknowledging his musical talent. Privately, the committee conveyed their displeasure. Thus, early in his career, Bizet displayed an independent spirit that would be reflected in innovative ideas in his opera composition.
[The Pearl Fishers - Georges Bizet, Virginia Opera] ~ Georges Bizet

The Russian general is used to such supplicant behavior. During the war, he ordered his troops to shoot any of their comrades who ran from the Germans, and any Russian village that was thought to have collaborated with the Nazis was burned to the ground. Zhukov is so feared that other Russian generals have been known to tremble in his presence. Patton does not tremble. "He was in full dress uniform much like comic opera and covered in medals," Patton later wrote to Beatrice of Zhukov. "He is short, rather fat and has a prehensile chin like an ape but good blue eyes." As Russian tanks rolled past the reviewing stand, Patton noticed Zhukov gloating over the new Soviet IS-3 model ~ Bill O'Reilly

Eating, loving, singing, and digesting are, in truth, the four acts of the comic opera known as life, and they pass like bubbles of a bottle of champagne. Whoever lets them break without having enjoyed them is a complete fool. ~ Gioachino Rossini

Who is the hunchback in my comic opera, but me? I'm crippled on the inside and unable to make the gestures of love ... ~ John Geddes

Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins (however tragic in its effects), that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life. ~ Alain De Botton

Superman was my first comic back in the '50s; that was me under the bedspread with the flashlight reading comic books. ~ Jok Church

My colleagues and I feel that independents like ElfQuest are nothing but sheep in wolves' clothing.- S. Lee ~ Robert Asprin

Comic-Con is a special kind of crazy. ~ Denis O'Hare

If you were casting the part of the evil scientist who would prove the Caped Crusader's deadliest nemesis, you'd likely glance at the headshot of German-born psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham, with his owl-like glasses and severe Prussian features, and think, "Nah, too on-the-nose. ~ Glen Weldon

In the '80s, everyone wanted to be in opera. It was groovy. ~ Baz Luhrmann

Comic-Con is a bizarre world. It's wonderful. It's nice, feeling the love. Everywhere you walk, you feel the love. ~ Anthony Head

I don't rehearse films as much as opera or theatre. When I began directing films I thought a long rehearsal was a good idea. Experience showed me that the best performance was often left in a rehearsal room. ~ Bruce Beresford

I write books, I write for comic books, I give lectures ... I live. And when the opportunity comes to do a picture, I do a picture. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

Of all the awards, the Stand-up Comic Audience Award is our favorite. It is a chance to honor the performers who spend much of their careers developing their craft and working in the comedy clubs all over America. ~ George Schlatter

Opera lovers may be the narrowest people in the world. ~ Haruki Murakami

Alan Moore does have a sheen of class. He's a smart guy, and I'm sure there was a metaphoric level, I'm not denying that, but let's face it. the main reason he was doing a super-hero comic was because he was working for a super-hero comic book company. ~ Chester Brown

I frankly expected a far more negative reaction from you on discovering…" she glanced around the lab "…the situation. Why are you helping?"

"I'm not helping - I'm merely not hindering in as strenuous a fashion as I am able. ~ G.S. Jennsen

I think my great-grandpa was an opera singer or something. ~ Jennifer Damiano

If God drives a car, He'd drive a 1973 Ford LTD Brougham sedan with a claret-colored vinyl roof, with oxblood leather upholstery and an opera window. ~ Douglas Coupland

It's always been a dream for me to play a comic book character. ~ Celina Jade

The word 'theatrical' makes me cringe, because it suggests a performance is staged, put on, rehearsed. And while all this is true for an opera, I believe the act of singing and performing should always be honest, raw, guttural. ~ Zola Jesus

In a world where every single person -good or bad- has a voice, I hope you pick up your pen and use yours. ~ Sarah Andersen

Armando Iannucci is one of my heroes. As I was growing up, he was probably the most influential comic voice that I had. ~ John Oliver

Were a stranger to drop on a sudden into this world, I would show him, as a specimen of its ills, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field of battle strewed with carcasses, a fleet foundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its pleasures; whither should I conduct him? to a ball, to an opera, to court? He might justly think, that I was only showing him a diversity of distress and sorrow. ~ David Hume

Opera is full of trappings that make us go away from being human. You can't let them do that. You can't walk like you're in an opera! You have to make it real. You have to just be there. ~ Charles Nelson Reilly

They talk as an English butler might after several years in a Chicago grand-opera company. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

No matter what comes, we will persevere. It's not over until we win."

Oh, how she wanted to believe him. How she wanted to believe that her father not only had all the answers, but the power to make everything okay. Once upon a time she had believed it; then he hadn't come home. "Why are you so sure?"

"Because I didn't cross universes to return to life, simply to die again. ~ G.S. Jennsen

My mother became a casting director, and she cast me in a soap opera called 'One Life to Live.' I was, like, 8 years old, playing a kid who had hurt himself on a skateboard. I had, like, three lines. I did the lines, and everybody in the studio applauded - I was immediately hooked after that. I was like, 'This is the life for me.' ~ Christian Slater

I feel sorry for people who only know comic books through movies. I really do. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ever notice that phrenologists have funny-shaped heads? ~ The Covert Comic

As far as comic books are concerned, I was always a Marvel guy for the most part, although I did follow DC a little. I don't know, honestly I'd just like to play whatever role [that] not just the studio, but the fans think I fit the best into. Because I think, especially in worlds like that, you've really got to do right by the fan base and stay in tune with what they are looking for and what they desire. I would just want to do right by them. ~ Zachary Levi

I'm not a great joke writer, which is odd for a comic to say, but I'm not. ~ Lewis Black

She sang.
Loudly. Cheerfully. Defiantly.
"The sun will come up, to-mor-row ... "
If the man battling the elements heard her, he gave no indication. She finished the songs she knew from Annie, then started on Phantom of the Opera.
Tally sang to keep the fear tamped down.
She sang to defy the storm.
She sang to make sure God knew where she was since she couldn't think of an appropriate prayer.
And she sincerely hoped He liked show tunes. ~ Cherry Adair

So one must be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox ... ~ Stanislaw Lem

Personally, I really enjoy sci-fi. I watch it, I read comic books, and I play video games. I love this kind of world, so to be able to work in it is a dream. I enjoy it. It's all good. ~ Aaron Ashmore

George Carlin is kind of my template now because George Carlin before was straight laced regular comic and he had short hair, a tie, suit, nightclub guy. Then he said screw it, let his hair grow, just started telling what he thought was the truth. So that's what I'm trying to do. ~ Drew Carey

I would love to sing opera. ~ Leona Lewis

We would never get away from it ... It's bad enough as it is, but with the wireless telephone one could be called up at the opera, in church, in our beds. Where could one be free from interruption? ~ Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin

A lot of times I play the villain or the comic relief, and I get to kind of play the comic relief to a degree, which is fun, but I also get to say, "You are created in the image in God. You are a perfect child of God. And this part of you is the heart of who you are. You're not alone, and you're okay just the way you are." ~ Missi Pyle

My ambition was to stop waiting tables. That was how I measured success: finally, I was able to stop waiting tables, and I was able to pay the rent, and that was by being a stand-up comic. Not a very good stand-up comic, but good enough to make a living. ~ Graham Norton

He simply preferred the sensation of soil beneath his feet and wind in his hair, of fresh, non-recycled air which carried on it the scent and taste of life. He preferred what was solid and real, where if you could see it you could touch it, feel its texture between the tips of your fingers. As far as he knew, no one had ever touched a star. Not even her. ~ G.S. Jennsen

I quit my job in the bank when I was 19. I took a chance. I went to Milan to study opera and singing. My father really supported me economically. ~ Marcello Giordani

Of course I know what she means. To make art in fandom is to follow your passion at the risk of never being taken seriously. I've written dozens of fics-put them together and you'd have several novels-but who knows what a college admissions officer will think of that as a pastime. Where does 12,000 Tumbler followers rate in relation to a spot in the National Honor Society in their minds? Every week I get anonymous messages in my inbox telling me I should write a real book. Well, haven't I already? What makes what I do different from "real writing"? Is it that I don't use original characters? I guess that makes every Hardy Boys edition, every Star Wars book, every spinoff, sequel, fairy-tale re-telling, historical romance, comic book reboot, and the music Hamilton "not real writing". Or is it that a real book is something printed, that you can hold in your hand, not something you write on the internet? Or is "real writing" something you sell in a store, not give away for free? No, I know it's none of these things. It's merely this: "real writing" is done by serious people, whereas fanfiction is written by weirdos, teenagers, degenerates, and women. ~ Britta Lundin

I was planning to sort my comic books based on level of second wave feminist influence." "As opposed to first wave?" "Yes, well, Susan B. Anthony laid the foundation for those who have come after. It's all really interrelated but she didn't have direct influence over late twentieth century comics. ~ Penny Reid

The unfortunate are not as miserable as the world imagines. That urchins, the handicapped, orphans, prisoners and others are much happier than people think. And that language is a trap, that a dark evolutionary force has created languages to limit human thought. That writers are overrated fools. That all religions come from ancient comic writers. And the ultimate goal of comics is same as the purpose of humanity – to break free from language. ~ Manu Joseph

My auntie Anne took me to 'Phantom of the Opera' in London. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. ~ Lisa O'Hare

For the shallow delights of matrimony and opera I have no courage. ~ Johannes Brahms

I know that my passion is for opera, but sometimes I like also to sing songs, because there are many beautiful melodies. ~ Andrea Bocelli

I've learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. It is not, of course, translated into another language but it is a translation from the images in the author's mind to that which he is able to put down on paper. Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write. It's one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it's transcendent, it's brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire. But even if the book in question turns out fairly well, it's never the book that you'd hoped to write. It's smaller than the book you'd hoped to write. It is an object, a collection of sentences, and it does not remotely resemble a cathedral made of fire. It feels, in short, like a rather inept translation of a mythical great work. The translator, then, is simply moving the book another step along the translation continuum. The translator is translating a translation. ~ Michael Cunningham

I don't like reality shows and have never watched them, but I'm addicted to 'Real Housewives' because it's authentic old-time soap opera reborn! ~ Camille Paglia

I just try to keep myself a traditionalist. I liked being an underground comic doing my thing. I want to maintain that. I just do. ~ Zach Galifianakis

Bertolt Brecht's observation in The Threepenny Opera that eating takes precedence over morality. Emerging ~ Satyajit Das