John Osborne Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

That voice that cries out doesn't have to be a weakling's does it?

John Osborne
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
Homophobia may be offensive but the other side of the coin is just as noisome, whatever they may tell you in Euroboy or Zipper.

John Osborne
If you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice clean soul, you'd better give up the whole idea of life and become a saint. Because you'll never make it as a human being. It's either this world or the next.

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…damn you England.

John Osborne
There aren't any good, brave causes left. If the big bang does come, and we all get killed off, it won't be in aid of the old-fashioned, grand design. It'll just be for the Brave New-nothing-very-much-thank-you. About as pointless and inglorious as stepping in front of a bus.

John Osborne
Jimmy Porter: They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past.

John Osborne
What are we hoping to get out of it, what's it all in aid of – is it really just for the sake of a gloved hand waving at you from a golden coach?

John Osborne
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
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
George Dillon: [I]t's easy to answer the ultimate questions – it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.

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

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

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

John Osborne
Let's pretend that we're human beings and that we're actually alive.

John Osborne
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
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
Reason and Progress, the old firm, is selling out! Everyone get out while the going's good. Those forgotten shares you had in the old traditions, the old beliefs are going up—up and up and up.

John Osborne
A real pro is a real man, all he needs is an old backcloth behind him and he can hold them on his own for half an hour. He's like the general run of people, only he's a lot more like them than they are themselves, if you understand me.

John Osborne
Damn you, England. You're rotting now, and quite soon you'll disappear. My hate will outrun you yet if only for a few seconds. I wish it could be eternal.

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.

John Osborne
I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age—unless you're an American, of course.

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.

John Osborne
I have only one regret remaining now in this matter of Adolf. It is simply that I was unable to look down upon her open coffin and, like that bird in the Book of Tobit, drop a good, large mess in her eye.

John Osborne
Since I gave up hope, I feel so much better.

John Osborne
Archie Rice: Let me know where you're working tomorrow night and I'll come and see you.

John Osborne
Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.

John Osborne