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John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes

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Famous John Osborne Quotes

“The inner heart of the movement was cynical, sophisticated and rigidly political. The simple, idealistic, apocalyptic visions it aroused among the mass of good-hearted adherents were ruthlessly engineered and exploited by professionals who were dedicated, born enemies of their own country. They sued all their fanaticism and skill at arousing panic and dissatisfaction among the ranks of decent, respectable, dim liberals who were genuinely dismayed and alarmed by the way the world seemed to be heading for hideous destruction.”

PoliticsLiberalsBritish PoliticsProtestersCampaign For Nuclear DisarmamentCnd
Book:Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise
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“If one word applied to that post-war decade it was inertia. Enthusiasm there was not, in this climate of fatigue. Jimmy Porter was hurt because things had remained the same. Colonel Redfern grieved that everything had changed. They were both wrong, but that was hard to see at the time.”

1950sAngry Young ManPostwarLook Back In AngerPostwar BritainJimmy Porter
Book:Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise
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“(Charles) Laughton was one of the most pugnaciously morose men I had ever met. His huge talent seemed to endorse his implacable resentment. His Caliban self-portraiture must have been further agnozied by being incarcerated, like so many of his unhappy generation, in that closet which dared not speak its name. Even his large collection of Klees and Kokoshchkas was displayed as trophies of martyrdom rather than joyful plunder.”

ActorsGayHomosexualityAutobiographyMorose1950sIn The ClosetCharles Laughton
Book:Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise
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“Like all obsessive characters, Merrick was inordinately boring. He was uninterested in books, music, politics, people or, seemingly, even sex. His studied politeness was a mask that must conceal a slow-boiling malevolence. I can't see what he could have responded to in an irrepressible jokesmith like Jimmy Porter. He could squeeze out a frosty smile only when someone like a lovingly hated star collapsed with coronary.”

ProseAutobiographyLook Back In AngerDavid MerrickImpresario
Book:Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise
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“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.”

SeemsUniverseSimplePiecesAtheismRocksPositive AtheismSunlight
Book:John Osborne Plays 2: The Entertainer; The Hotel in Amsterdam; West of Suez; Time Present
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