Quotations by Oscar Wilde

OSCAR WILDE (1854 –1900), AN IRISH ESSAYIST, NOVELIST, PLAYWRIGHT AND POET.

One can survive everything nowadays except death.

 ~ Oscar Wilde, "Oscariana" (1907)

“People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.”

~ Oscar Wilde, Letter from Paris (May 1900)

“It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Mr. W. H. (1889)

“The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.”

~ Oscar Wilde, Intentions (1891)

“Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.”

~ Oscar Wilde, Intentions (1891)

“He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him.”

~ Oscar Wilde, "The Birthday of the Infanta", The House of Pomegranates (1892)

‘Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.”

~ Oscar Wilde,"A New Calendar," The Pall Mall Gazette (February 17, 1887)

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde, edited by Alvin Redman (1954)

“Starvation, and not sin, is the parent of modern crime.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde, edited by Alvin Redman (1954)

“To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.”

~ Oscar Wilde, Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)

“To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.”

~ Oscar Wilde, "Hélas" (1881)

“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying (1889)

“The final revelation is that Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.”

~ Oscar Wilde,The Decay of Lying (1889)

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals. It is only by language that we rise above them, or above each other—by language, which is the parent, and not the child, of thought.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891)

“I am but too conscious of the fact that we are born in an age when only the dull are treated seriously, and I live in terror of not being misunderstood.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist (1891)

“As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.”

~ Oscar Wilde,The Critic as Artist (1891)

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

~ Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost (1887)

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Quotations by Mark Twain

MARK TWAIN (1835—1910), AN  AMERICAN HUMORIST, JOURNALIST, LECTURER, AND NOVELIST WHO IS NOTED FOR HIS ADVENTURE STORIES : THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER (1876) AND ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (1885).

“Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.”

~ Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“Surely the test of a novel's characters is that you feel a strong interest in them and their affairs—the good to be successful, the bad to suffer failure. Well, in John Ward, you feel no divided interest, no discriminating interest—you want them all to land in hell together, and right away.”

~ Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Notebook (1935)

“I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo — that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture — great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast — for luncheon — for dinner — for tea — for supper — for between meals. I like a change, occasionally.”

~ Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

“I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little--not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell.”

~ Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

  “Virtue never has been as respectable as money.”

~ Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

“The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”

~ Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”

~ Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869)

 “All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.”

~ Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)

“No California gentleman or lady ever abuses or oppresses a Chinaman, under any circumstances, an explanation that seems to be much needed in the east. Only the scum of the population do it; they and their children. They, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America.”

~ Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)

“She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to let any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for — well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat — I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell — everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it.”

~ Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

“There was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking sweetmeats was only "hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such valuables was plain simple stealing — and there was a command against that in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing.”

~ Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

“You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”

~ Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

“There warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to church only when they've got to; but a hog is different.”

~ Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

So there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it and aint't agoing to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can't stand it. I been there before.

~ Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

“The citizen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal, he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him: it is his duty to agitate anyway, and it is the duty of others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.”

~ Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

“Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion — several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.”

~ Mark Twain, “Man's Place in the Animal World" (1869)

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Quotations by Harold Pinter

HAROLD PINTER (1930 –2008) WAS AN INFLUENTIAL MODERN ENGLISH PLAYWRIGHT AND THE 2005 NOBEL LAUREATE FOR LITERATURE.

 “One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.”

~ Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics

“There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened.”

~ Harold Pinter, Old Times

“There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.”

~ Harold Pinter, Art, Truth & Politics, The Nobel Lecture

“There are places in my heart...where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.”

~ Harold Pinter, No Man's Land

“When you lead a life of scholarship you can't be bothered with the humorous realities, you know, tits, that kind of thing.”

~ Harold Pinter, Ashes to Ashes

“Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.”

~ Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008

“I think we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility.”

~ Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008

“You are in no man's land. Which never moves, which never changes, which never grows older, but remains forever, icy and silent.”

~ Harold Pinter, No Man's Land

“The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.”

~ Harold Pinter, Writing for the Theatre (1962)

“The majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lies. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.”

~ Harold Pinter, Art, Truth & Politics: The Nobel Lecture

A writer's life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don't have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection - unless you lie - in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.

~ Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948-2008

“EMMA It was never intended to be the same kind of home. Was it? Pause. You didn’t ever see it as a home, in any sense, did you? JERRY No, I saw it as a flat . . . you know. EMMA For fucking. JERRY No, for loving. EMMA Well, there’s not much of that left, is there? Silence. JERRY I don’t think we don’t love each other. Pause. EMMA”

~ Harold Pinter, Betrayal

"But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost."

~ Harold Pinter, Art, Truth & Politics (2005)

“Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this."
He turns out the light.
BLACKOUT”

~ Harold Pinter, No Man's Land

“But death permits you
To arrange your hours

While he sucks the honey
From your lovely flowers”

~ Harold Pinter, Death May Be Ageing

“The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.”

~ Harold Pinter

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Kingsley Amis Quick Facts

Kingsley Amis, an English Novelist, Poet, Critic, and Teacher.

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• Birth Name: Kingsley William Amis
• AKA: Sir Kingsley William Amis
• Date of Birth: April 16, 1922
• Place of Birth: Clapham, London, Middlesex, England, UK
• Zodiac Sign: Aries
• Date of Death: October 22, 1995
• Died at Age: 73
• Place of Death: St. Pancras Hospital, Camden, London, Middlesex, England, UK
• Place of Burial: Cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London, UK
• Cause of Death: Stroke
• Ethnicity: White
• Nationality: British
• Father: William Robert Amis (1888-1963)
• Mother: Rosa Annie, née Lucas (1891-1957)
• Sexual Orientation: Straight
• Spouse(s):

1. Hilary Ann Bardwell (m. 1948–1965, divorced) (b. 1928-d. 2010)
2. Elizabeth Jane Howard (m. 1965–1983, divorced) (b. 1923-d. 2014)

• Children:

1. Son - Philip Amis (b. 1948)
2. Son-Martin Louis Amis (b. 1949)
3. Daughter- Sally Amis (1954-2000)

• Alma Mater: City of London School; St John's College, Oxford
• Kingsley Amis is Known for: his humorous but biting satire aimed at the pretensions of class society and the weakness of the individual
• Kingsley Amis is criticized for: his old-fashioned and prejudiced views, particularly with regard to women
• Kingsley Amis was influenced by: William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Charles Dickens (1812–1870), W.B. Yeats (1865–1939), Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
• Kingsley Amis’ Works Inspired: Philip Larkin (1922–1985), John Osborne (1929-1994)

Quotes

“I thought to myself how much more welcome a faculty the imagination would be if we could tell when it was at work and when not.” - Kingsley Amis, The Green Man

Major Themes

• Society and Class
• Art and Culture
• Injustice
• Women
• Alcohol and Drugs

Memorable Characters

• Jim Dixon
• John Lewis
• Patrick Standish
• Jenny Bunn
• Roger Micheldene
• Sir Roy Vandervane
• Rhiannon Weaver
• Muriel

Major Works

• The Russian Girl (1992)
• The Folks That Live on the Hill (1990)
• The Old Devils (1986)
• Russian Hide-and-Seek (1980)
• The Alteration (1976)
• The Riverside Villas Murder (1973)
• Girl, 20 (1971)
• The Anti-Death League (1966)
• One Fat Englishman (1963)
• The Green Man (1969)
• Take A Girl Like You (1960)
• Lucky Jim (1954)

Did You Know?

• Amis’ father, William Robert Amis was a mustard manufacturer’s clerk.
• Amis received his primary education from the City of London School.
• In the year 1941 he enrolled into St. John’s College, Oxford but his education was interrupted during World War II by his service as a lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals. After the end of the war in 1945, he returned to Oxford and resumed his studies and got a distinction in English.
• In 1946, Kingsley Amis joined the Communist Party of Great Britain.
• Amis was appointed as lecturer at the University of Wales Swansea in 1948.
• He penned his first novel Lucky Jim while working as lecturer at the University of Wales Swansea.
• Amis is labeled by many as a member of the Angry Young Men movement due to his mood and temperament reflected in Lucky Jim.
• Although Lucky Jim was a best seller in the UK, the book was sold only two thousand copies in the US in its first two years.
• He received the honorary title ‘Knight’ in 1990.
• Amis was a non believer of God.
• Amis had a close friendship with the poet Philip Larkin.
• Kingsley had two marriages and was divorced twice.
• He married his first wife Hilary Bardwell in 1948 and had three children with her.
• Amis’ marriage tended towards divorce soon after Hilary discovered his love affair with Elizabeth Jane Howard in 1963.
• After formal separation from Hilary in 1965, Amis married Jane in the same year. Again the marriage proved to be unsuccessful and they were divorced in 1983.
• Amis had no children with Jane.
• His eldest son Philip Amis is a collagist.
• His other son, Martin Amis is a novelist.
• Kingsley Amis suffered from a mild stroke in 1995 which worsened his already ill health.
• In his last years Amis stayed in the same house where his first wife Hilary lived with her third husband so that he could be cared for until his death.
• He won the Booker Prize in 1986 for The Old Devils.
• After death his body was cremated and the ashes were given to family or friend.
• Kingsley Amis was the key figure in postwar British culture as well as the greatest British comic novelist of his generation.

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