Quotes by John Osborne

“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs”

“It is easy to answer the ultimate questions -- it saves you bothering with the immediate ones.”

“Never believe in mirrors or newspapers”

“Dont clap too hard - its a very old building.”

“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.”

“Here we are, were alone in the universe, theres 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. Weve only got ourselves. Somehow, weve just got to make a go of it. Weve only ourselves.”

“Laughters the nearest we ever get, or should get, to sainthood. Its the state of grace that saves most of us from contempt.”

“Theres no such thing as failure - just waiting for success.”

“And even in the hatred of the majority, theres a kind of triumph because I know that, although theyd never admit it, they secretly respect me.”

“Theyre basically gutting it out to the stone and starting over.”

“The British public has always had an unerring taste for ungifted amateurs.”

“We all of us waited for him to die. The family sent him a check every month, and hoped hed get on with it quietly, without too much vulgar fuss.”

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs., October 31, 1977]

That voice that cries out doesnt have to be a weaklings does it?

Jimmy: One day, when Im no longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all. Its all here. (slapping his forehead) Written in flames a mile high. And it wont be recollected in tranquillity either, picking daffodils with Auntie Wordsworth. Itll be recollected in fire, and blood. My blood.

To be as vehement as he is is to be almost non-committal.

The school teacher is certainly underpaid as a child minder but ludicrously overpaid as an educator.

Heaven be thanked, we live in such an age when no man dies for love except upon the stage.

Dont clap too hard - its a very old building.

Here we are, were alone in the universe, theres 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. Weve only got ourselves. Somehow, weve just got to make a go of it. Weve only ourselves.