Quotes by Playwrights - Page 40

There is a great deal to be said in favour of reading a novel backwards. The last page is as a rule the most interesting, and when one begins with the catastrophe or the dénouement one feels on pleasant terms of equality with the author. It is like going behind the scenes of a theatre. One is no longer taken in, and the hair-breadth escapes of the hero and the wild agonies of the heroine leave one absolutely unmoved. One knows the jealously guarded secret, and one can afford to smile at the quite unnecessary anxiety that the puppets of fiction always consider it their duty to display.
Oscar Wilde
Nothing is mightier than our why, nothing stands above it, because in the end there is a why to which no answer is possible. In fact, from why to why, from one step to the next, you get to the end of things. And it is only by travelling from one why to the next, as far as the why that is unanswerable, that man attains the level of the creative principle, facing the infinite, equal to the infinite maybe. So long as he can answer the why he gets lost, he loses his way among things. 'Why this?' I answer, 'because that," and from one explanation to the next I reach the point where no explanation is satisfying, from one explanation to the next I reach zero, the absolute, where truth and falsehood are equivalent, become equal to one another, are identified with one another, cancel each other out in face of the absolute nothing. And so we can understand how all action, all choice, all history is justified, at the end of time, by a final cancelling-out. The why goes beyond everything. Nothing goes beyond the why, not even the nothing, because the nothing is not the explanation; when silence confronts us, the question to which there is no answer rings out in the silence. That ultimate why, that great why is like a light that blots out everything, but a blinding light; nothing more can be made out, there is nothing more to make out.
Eugène Ionesco
For the only way one can speak of nothing is to speak of it as though it were something, just as the only way one can speak of God is to speak of him as though he were a man, which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time, and as the only way one can speak of a man, even our anthropologists have realised that, is to speak of him as though he were a termite.
Samuel Beckett
There is nothing at all to be done about it, There is nothing to do about anything.
T.S Eliot
...then much, then little, then nothing.
Samuel Beckett
Name, no, nothing is namable, tell, no, nothing can be told, what then, I don't know, I shouldn't have begun.
Samuel Beckett
...nothing ever as much as begun, nothing ever but nothing and never, nothing ever but lifeless words.
Samuel Beckett
But mostly not for nothing never quite for nothing even stillest night when air too still for even the lightest leaf to sound no not to sound to carry too still for even the lightest leaf to carry the brief way here and not die the sound not die on the brief way the wave not die away.
Samuel Beckett
We love our country, not because it is perfect in everything, but it manages to touch our heart despite all its imperfections in everything!
Mehmet Murat ildan
A moss which leaves its ocean becomes pale and dries up and a man which leaves his mother country is a moss which leaves it ocean!
Mehmet Murat ildan
William Cowper said that God made the country, and man made the town. If it was the opposite, there would be no country; because town can be created from the country but the country cannot be created from the town!
Mehmet Murat ildan
May God save any country to remain in a position to choose between a genius of bad character and a stupid of good character, because both will bring disaster to that country!
Mehmet Murat ildan
I love to talk about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.
Oscar Wilde
Just because you are living in a stupid country, you don’t have to be stupid! Isolate yourself from the fools! Protect your mind to be poisoned by the deceitful media, by the dishonest politicians, by the primitive culture and the illogical traditions! Rise above the lownesses of the system like a falcon rising from the marshland and start shining like a star for others to see you and to come near to you!
Mehmet Murat ildan
You must often leave your country, not necessarily physically, but mentally often! Leave your own music; leave your own religion! Leave your own culture, your own books and ideas! Walk around in the world of others, listen to what they speak and learn what they think! In short, get out of your puddle, sail to the ocean! Move, friend, move out of your country!
Mehmet Murat ildan
In the agenda of empty countries, there exists only empty matters!
Mehmet Murat ildan
In the country, especially, there are such a lot of entertaining things. I can walk over everybody's land, and look at everybody's view, and dabble in everybody's brook; and enjoy it just as much as though I owned the land--and with no taxes to pay!
Jean Webster
If half of a country is rotten, the other half will soon start rotting as well!
Mehmet Murat ildan
After all, the Indo-European word cunt was derived from the goddess Kunda or Cunti, and shares the same root as kin and country.
Eve Ensler
What day is it,?” asked Pooh. “It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.“My favorite day,” said Pooh.
A.A. Milne
What day is it?” It’s today, squeaked Piglet. My favorite day, said Pooh.
A.A. Milne
If your yesterday was much better than your today, then today you will most probably walk around in your yesterday!
Mehmet Murat ildan
- What day is it?- It's today, - squeaked Piglet.- My favorite day, - said Pooh. ("Winnie-the Pooh", A.A. Milne)
A.A. Milne
If you can remain as an atheist in a falling plane, then it means you are a real atheist!
Mehmet Murat ildan
In the middle of the storm, the ‘a’ of the atheist drops!
Mehmet Murat ildan
When I deeply look at a pious, I see no affection but fear; and when I look at an atheist, I see no fear but conceit!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Mama, you don’t understand. It’s all a matter of ideas, and God is just one idea I don’t acept. It’s not important. I am not going out and commit crimes or be immoral because I don’t believe in God. I don’t even think about it. It’s just that I get so tired of Him getting credit for all the things the human race achieves through its own stubborn effort. There simply is no God! There is only Man, and it’s he who makes miracles!
Lorraine Hansberry
Man can be an atheist only in theory, not in practice, because the universe is too frightening and too chaotic to be too independent!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Fundamentally, I started writing to save my life. Yes, my own life first. I see the same impulse in my students-the dark, the queer, the mixed-blood, the violated-turning to the written page with a relentless passion, a drive to avenge their own silence, invisibility, and erasure as living, innately expressive human beings.
Cherríe L. Moraga
A writer will write with or without a movement; but at the same time, for Chicano, lesbian, gay and feminist writers-anybody writing against the grain of Anglo misogynist culture-political movements are what have allowed our writing to surface from the secret places in our notebooks into the public sphere.
Cherríe L. Moraga
A minimum put to good use is enough for anything.
Jules Verne
All things lie dark in possibility.
William Saroyan
...I only told you about it because I thought I might get a laugh out of you for once even if it wasn't the truth, Jessie. Things don't have to be true to talk about 'em, you know.
Marsha Norman
In order to be company he must display a certain mental activity. But it need not be of a high order. Indeed it might be argued the lower the better. Up to a point. The lower the order of mental activity the better the company. Up to a point.
Samuel Beckett
Everything cannot be possible without thinking that everything is possible!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Don’t see anything impossible! This simple philosophy will enable many things to be possible!
Mehmet Murat ildan
A bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, he told her, to which she retorted that a proverb was the last refuge of the mentally destitute.
W Somerset Maugham
Sexual abuse of children now presents society with the ultimate crisis of patriarchy, when children refuse to protect their fathers by keeping secrets.
Beatrix Campbell
All I know: I could only encounter you, my oasis, coming out of a desert. Deserted myself. This is all right. My futureless and solitary self. When suddenly I hear the voice of the springs--Right away you made me want to sing. To cry. Then to drink. But after the desert, the merest trickle of water sounds like a storm. And ever since, Promethea's every murmur shakes my life like an earthquake. I was asleep. I was not thirsty. It would have been possible for me not to hear the first three tears. Ever since I never sleep. I listen.
Hélène Cixous
Just because an impressive storm doesn’t touch you, you must not find it beautiful! Lend an ear to the voices of those which are under the storm!
Mehmet Murat ildan
People are very busy; they are so busy that when they walk in the crowds they see no one, no one but themselves; they hear no voice, no voice but their own voice!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Under every stone lurks a politician.
Aristophanes
On the Night of the Halloween, I have never seen any evil apparition or fearsome ghost but politicians on TV! They are the real goblins and specters!
Mehmet Murat ildan
If a thief and an immoral society finds a thief and an immoral political leader, it will support him to the death!
Mehmet Murat ildan
We need to expose the motives of our political leaders, point out their connections to corporate power, show how huge profits are being made out of death and suffering.
Howard Zinn
Instead of politicians, let the monkeys govern the countries; at least they will steal only the bananas!
Mehmet Murat ildan
In the distant future, I don’t want to be remembered; I want to remember!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Let those who live never forget those who died!
Mehmet Murat ildan
No longer mourn for me when I am deadthan you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone.
William Shakespeare
If you are given a hundred city, refuse it without any hesitation; if you are given a lovely wooden cottage in the middle of a forest, accept it without any hesitation because all you need is just a peace of mind!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Peace of mind! All we need is peace of mind!
Mehmet Murat ildan
PRESIDENT BARTLETT: "See how benevolent I can be when everybody just does what I tell them.
Aaron Sorkin
Life is like a cup of coffee: The more avidly you drink of it, the sooner you reach the dregs.
J.M. Barrie
The sweat of industry would dry and die, But for the end it works to.
William Shakespeare
Don’t be afraid of an endless road, but the road with an end!
Mehmet Murat ildan
For some, the life journey has just started, for some, it is about to end; but in truth, there is no start and there is no end! There is just an ocean of particles playing aimlessly!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Every moment was a precious thing, having in it the essence of finality.
Daphne du Maurier
Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it's not fine it's not the end.
Oscar Wilde
There are things we really do not understand; and much more than this, there are things we really do not try to understand!
Mehmet Murat ildan
Now look here, Smithers. They's two kind's of stealing. They's the small kind, like what you does, and the big kind, like I does. Fo' de small stealing dey put you in jail soon or late. But fo' de big stealin' dey puts your picture in de paper and yo' statue in de Hall of Fame when you croak. If dey's one thing I learned in ten years on de Pullman cars, listenin' to de white quality talk, it's dat same fact. And when I gits a chance to use it . . . from stowaway to emperor in two years. Dat's goin' some!
Eugene O'Neill