John Osborne quotes

John Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, and actor, renowned for his powerful and controversial works. His play "Look Back in Anger" is credited with transforming British theatre in the mid-20th century. He became a prominent figure of the "Angry Young Men" movement, challenging societal norms through his art. Here are 19 of his quotes:

Archie Rice: Don't clap too hard – it's a very old building. (John Osborne)
George Dillon: [I]t's easy to answer the ultimate questions – it saves you bothering with the immediate ones. View quote
John Osborne
Let's pretend that we're human beings and that we're actually alive. View quote
John Osborne
Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs. View quote
John Osborne
Jimmy Porter: They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past. View quote
John Osborne
Archie Rice: Let me know where you're working tomorrow night and I'll come and see you. View quote
John Osborne
There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success. View quote
John Osborne
John Osborne spoke out in a vein of ebullient, free-wheeling rancour that betokened the arrival of something new in the theatre – a sophisticated, articulate lower-class. Most of the critics were offended by Jimmy Porter, but not on account of his anger; a working-class hero is expected to be angry. What nettled them was something quite different: his self-confidence. This was no envious inferior whose insecurity they could pity. View quote
John Osborne
Archie Rice: I'm dead behind these eyes. I'm dead, just like the whole inert, shoddy lot out there. It doesn't matter because I don't feel a thing, and neither do they. View quote
John Osborne
This is a letter of hate. It is for you my countrymen, I mean those men of my country who have defiled it. The men with manic fingers leading the sightless, feeble, betrayed body of my country to its death. View quote
John Osborne
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)
Go on - but don't think you can kill my confidence. I've had experts doing it for years. View quote
John Osborne
In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea. View quote
John Osborne
You're hurt because everything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same. And neither of you can face it. Something's gone wrong somewhere, hasn't it? View quote
John Osborne
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. View quote
John Osborne
It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly. View quote
John Osborne
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. View quote
John Osborne
I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong. View quote
John Osborne
It is widely held that too much wine will dull a man's desire. Indeed it will in a dull man. View quote
John Osborne