Quotessence
Home / Books / Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise

Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise

Book by John Osborne · 7 quotes · Autobiography, Angry Young Man, Look Back In Anger

Filter quotes by topic

AllAutobiographyAngry Young ManLook Back In Anger1950s1955ActorsBritish PoliticsCampaign For Nuclear DisarmamentCautionCharles LaughtonCndDavid MerrickEnglandGayHomosexualityImpresarioIn The ClosetJimmy PorterLiberalsMorose

Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise 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
Create image

“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
Create image

“(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
Create image

“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
Create image