Denis Donoghue Quotes

#1. Knowing that language has done so much, we want to believe that it can do everything.

Denis Donoghue

#2. The truth of art consists in its power to break the monopoly that those in power exercise by defining what is real.

Denis Donoghue

#3. A critical discourse that had respect for the mystery of art would look to the sense of life which finds expression in paradox, metaphor, tautology, and syntax.

Denis Donoghue

#4. There is no good reason to suppose that whatever can be felt can be expressed in words, or indeed in any articulate form.

Denis Donoghue

#5. If there is a distinctive Irish experience, it is one of division, exacerbated by the fact that division in a country so small seems perverse. But the scale doesn't matter.

Denis Donoghue

#6. The passions may be terrible, but the syllables are a relief.

Denis Donoghue

#7. The camera has an interest in turning history into spectacle, but none in reversing the process. At best, the picture leaves a vague blur in the observer's mind; strong enough to send him into battle perhaps, but not to have him understand why he is going.

Denis Donoghue