Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Sleep, thou patron of mankind, Great physician of the mind Who does nor pain nor sorrow know, Sweetest balm of every woe.
Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me, I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.
James Joyce - an essentially private man who wished his total indifference to public notice to be universally recognized.
If rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans!
Schepisi is the sort of director who could, would, and frequently did phone me whenever he came across a textual problem.
I never know what the hell I'm writing about, I never know what the next thing I'm writing about is, I never have a plan.
"Do you like card tricks?" "No, I hate card tricks," I answered. "Well, I`ll just show you this one." He showed me three.
The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is to put it out of its misery as soon as possible.
It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
The only time that most women give their orating husbands undivided attention is when the old boys mumble in their sleep.
Philip Larkin used to cheer himself up by looking in the mirror and saying the line from Rebecca, 'I am Mrs de Winter now!
A doctor could make a million dollars if he could figure out a way to bring a boy into the world without a trigger finger.
I didn't go into 'Rabbit Hole' wanting to write about class. I think because of who I am it somehow found its way into it.
I grew up in a tough neighborhood and we used to say you can get further with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word.
You got an all-out prize fight, you wait 'til the fight's over, one guy's left standing and that's how you know who's won.
As a playwright, I imagine that in one fashion or another I've been influenced by every single play I've ever experienced.
Art is the close scrutiny of reality and therefore I put on the stage only those things that I know happen in our society.
When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate, burn, bury, and terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on the planet.
Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
If you begin by sacrificing yourself to those you love, you will end by hating those to whom you have sacrificed yourself.
To the person with a toothache, even if the world is tottering, there is nothing more important than a visit to a dentist.
If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.
While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal living conditions on this earth?
What a man is depends on his character; but what he does, and what we think of what he does, depends on his circumstances.
Assasination on the scaffold is the worst form of assasination, because there it is invested with the approval of society.
You are going to let the fear of poverty govern you life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
Any sort of plain speaking is better than the nauseous sham good fellowship our democratic public men get up for shop use.
When you lead a life of scholarship you can't be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing.
All I can say is that I did admire 'The Lives of Others', which I thought was really about something and beautifully done.
I don't idealise women. I enjoy them. I have been married to two of the most independent women it is possible to think of.
Theatre should be a taxing experience: the greatest achievement of a writer is to produce a character who creates anxiety.
Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed.
The Canadian dialect of English . . . seems roughly to be the result of applying British syntax to an American vocabulary.
The more you go to a theatre and the more you hear stories you aren't necessarily familiar with, the more open you become.
People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?
You kissed me because you were awfully nice and I was awfully nice and we both liked kissing very much. It was inevitable.
Be yourself! Be individualistic!' he called out after me. 'But for God's sake get your hair cut. You look like an oddball.
Believe not each accusing tongue, As most weak persons do; But still believe that story wrong, Which ought not to be true!
I believe the moment of birth Is when we have knowledge of death I believe the season of birth Is the season of sacrifice.
When the gods know that a god hath fallen, With this kindly feeling They do encourage him-- Be thou a god again and again.
Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.
Our learning ought to be our lives' amendment, and the fruits of our private study ought to appear in our public behavior.
It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves.
The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
I don't look at my work in a critical or analytical way; I just don't think of myself objectively. It doesn't interest me.
Because theatre is a story-telling art form, we feel entitled to assume that the playwright got there before we got there.
When we are not rich enough to be able to purchase happiness, we must not approach to near and gaze on it in shop windows.
My parents' divorce was very difficult. Divorce is essentially incredibly painful, but it's also an essential part of life.
An insult directed at the wicked is not to be censured; on the contrary, the honest man, if he has sense, can only applaud.