Top 45 John Osborne Quotes

#1. 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

John Osborne Quotes #21000
#2. Heaven be thanked, we live in such an age when no man dies for love except upon the stage.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #102728
#3. It is widely held that too much wine will dull a man's desire. Indeed it will in a dull man.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #113710
#4. 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

John Osborne Quotes #120102
#5. Anyone who's never watched somebody die is suffering from a pretty bad case of virginity. For twelve months, I watched my father dying - when I was ten years old.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #139212
#6. Jimmy: I hope you won't make the mistake of thinking for one moment that I am a gentleman.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #153756
#7. Don't clap too hard - it's a very old building.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #174294
#8. 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

John Osborne Quotes #183031
#9. There's no such thing as failure - just waiting for success.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #274593
#10. Don't be afraid of being emotional. You won't die of it.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #275583
#11. Censorship is the commonest social blasphemy because it is mostly concealed, built into us by indolence, self-interest and cowardice.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #353121
#12. Royalty is the gold filling in a mouthful of decay

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #362018
#13. The schoolteacher is certainly underpaid as a childminder, but ludicrously overpaid as an educator.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #391807
#14. There will be a quick rash of hairy American filth, but it shouldn't threaten the existence of decent, serious British filth.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #410697
#15. Go on - but don't think you can kill my confidence. I've had experts doing it for years.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #437587
#16. Jimmy: You'll end up like one of those chocolate merengues my wife is so fond of [Alison starts banging jars] ... sweet and sticky on the outside, and sink your teeth in it [savouring every word]-inside, all white, messy and disgusting. [offering teapot sweetly to Helena] Milk?

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #453537
#17. To be as vehement as he is is to be almost non-committal.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #499780
#18. If you've no world of your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #504268
#19. Asking a working writer what he feels about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #534840
#20. 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

John Osborne Quotes #562999
#21. 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

John Osborne Quotes #595842
#22. The British public has always had an unerring taste for ungifted amateurs.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #602863
#23. 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

John Osborne Quotes #666824
#24. 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

John Osborne Quotes #732789
#25. Writers don't need love; all they require is money.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #734958
#26. That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's does it?

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #834664
#27. In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #927660
#28. It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #980947
#29. They spend their time looking forward to the past.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1012756
#30. 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

John Osborne Quotes #1036749
#31. Why do I do this every Sunday? Even the book reviews seem to be the same as last week's. Different books same reviews.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1169738
#32. Marriage is rather a silly habit.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1199362
#33. It is easy to answer the ultimate questions - it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1251829
#34. 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

John Osborne Quotes #1334221
#35. Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.
[Time Magazine, October 31, 1977]

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1387207
#36. Jimmy: The injustice of it is almost perfect! The wrong people going
hungry, the wrong people being loved, the wrong people dying!

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1509984
#37. 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

John Osborne Quotes #1573979
#38. 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?

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1610283
#39. 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

John Osborne Quotes #1634721
#40. Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1648548
#41. A refined sort of butcher, a woman is.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1754149
#42. Jimmy: (in a low, resigned voice) They all want to scape from the pain of being alive. And, most of all, from love. ( ... ) It's no good to fool yourself about love. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1763680
#43. I suppose people of our generation aren't able to die for good causes any longer. We had all that done for us, in the thirties and the forties, when we were still kids ... There aren't any good, brave causes left. (Jimmy Porter)

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1828552
#44. Alison: I don't think I want anything more to do with love. Any more. I can't take it on.
Cliff: You're too young to start giving up. Too young, and too lovely.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1861589
#45. I must be the luckiest man in the world. Not only am I bisexual, I am also Welsh.

John Osborne

John Osborne Quotes #1867812

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