John Osborne famous quotes

Don't be afraid of being emotional. You won't die of it.
-- John Osborne

#Emotional #Atheism #Positive Atheism

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.
-- John Osborne

#Love #Betrayal #Years

They spend their time looking forward to the past.
-- John Osborne

#Past #Looking Forward

There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success.
-- John Osborne

#Waiting

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.
-- John Osborne

#Character #Men #May

Let's pretend that we're human beings and that we're actually alive.
-- John Osborne

#Alive #Humans #Human Beings

Writers don't need love; all they require is money.
-- John Osborne

#Writing #Needs #Need Love

Go on - but don't think you can kill my confidence. I've had experts doing it for years.
-- John Osborne

#Confidence #Thinking #Years

Censorship is the commonest social blasphemy because it is mostly concealed, built into us by indolence, self-interest and cowardice.
-- John Osborne

#Fear #Self #Censorship

Don't clap too hard - it's a very old building.
-- John Osborne

#Old Buildings #Architecture #Building

Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.
-- John Osborne

#Dog #Writing #Thinking

I must be the luckiest man in the world. Not only am I bisexual, I am also Welsh.
-- John Osborne

#Bisexual #Men #World

The schoolteacher is certainly underpaid as a childminder, but ludicrously overpaid as an educator.
-- John Osborne

#Educator #Underpaid

Royalty is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay
-- John Osborne

#Gold #Decay #Filling In

A refined sort of butcher, a woman is.
-- John Osborne

#Butchers #Refined

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.
-- John Osborne

#Laughter #Grace #Sainthood

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.
-- John Osborne

#Death #Dying #Too Much

In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.
-- John Osborne

#Tea #London #Scandal

Oh heavens, 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! Hallelujah! I'm alive!
-- John Osborne

#Voice #Long #Heaven

I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong.
-- John Osborne

#Thinking #Play #People

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.
-- John Osborne

#Hatred #Triumph #Majority

That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's does it?
-- John Osborne

#Voice #Doe #Cry

It is easy to answer the ultimate questions - it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.
-- John Osborne

#Answers #Easy #Ultimate Questions

Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it just seems that it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow, we've just got to make a go of it. We've only ourselves.
-- John Osborne

#Simple #Rocks #Atheism

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.
-- John Osborne

#Sex #Giving Up #Sacrifice

George Bernard Shaw writes like a Pakistani who has learned English when he was twelve years old in order to become an accountant.
-- John Osborne

#Writing #Order #Years

The British public has always had an unerring taste for ungifted amateurs.
-- John Osborne

#Taste #British

There will be a quick rash of hairy American filth, but it shouldn't threaten the existence of decent, serious British filth.
-- John Osborne

#Filth #Serious #British

Marriage is rather a silly habit.
-- John Osborne

#Marriage #Silly #Habit

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.
-- John Osborne

#Hero #Ideas #Demise

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.
-- John Osborne

#Children #Age #Courses