John Osborne citáty

„Nikdy nevěř zrcadlům, ani novinám.“

—  John Osborne

[(en) Never believe in mirrors or newspapers.]
Zdroj: Kalendář VZP 2003

„Každý jsme ve vesmíru sám. Nějak si z toho musíme pomoci.“

—  John Osborne

„Učitel je bezesporu finančně podceněn jako pečovatel o děti, ale jako pedagog je šíleně přeplacen.“

—  John Osborne

„Žena - rafinovaná směs pyromana a hasiče.“

—  John Osborne

„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, Look Back in Anger

Zdroj: Look Back in Anger

„Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive.“

—  John Osborne, Look Back in Anger

Zdroj: Look Back in Anger

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

—  John Osborne

Quoted in Time magazine, October 31, 1977. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,945814,00.html
Also attributed to Christopher Hampton by the Sunday Times Magazine (16 October 1977)

„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, The Entertainer

Number 8
The Entertainer (1957)

„Archie Rice: Don't clap too hard – it's a very old building.“

—  John Osborne, The Entertainer

Number 7; said to have been an old joke in the music-halls at the time the play was written.
The Entertainer (1957)

„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.“

—  John Osborne

"A Letter To My Fellow Countrymen", Tribune (18 August 1961)

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

—  John Osborne

Epitaph for George Dillon, Act II (1957)
Co-written with Anthony Creighton.

„John Osborne spoke out in a vein of ebullient, free-wheeling rancour that betokened the arrival of something new in the theatre – a sophisticated, articulate lower-class. Most of the critics were offended by Jimmy Porter, but not on account of his anger; a working-class hero is expected to be angry. What nettled them was something quite different: his self-confidence. This was no envious inferior whose insecurity they could pity.“

—  John Osborne

Kenneth Tynan, Tynan Right and Left (1967) p. 13
Criticism

„Jimmy Porter: They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past.“

—  John Osborne, Look Back in Anger

Look Back in Anger, Act II, sc. I (1956)

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

—  John Osborne, The Entertainer

Number 13; this, the music-hall entertainer Archie Rice's acid farewell to his audience, also appears on Osborne's gravestone https://web.archive.org/web/20071020084223/http://www.shropshiregallery.co.uk/towns/clun/IMG_0277.html.
The Entertainer (1957)