Kenneth Tynan Quotes

Quotes about:

• A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  N.Y. Times, 1 Dec. 1963

  47 Copy quote

• A neurosis is a secret that you don’t know you are keeping.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Keeping Secrets, Neurosis, Sanity

  "The Life of Kenneth Tynan". Book by Katharine Tynan, p. 188, 1987.

  36 Copy quote

• How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Integrity, Way, Doe

  Review of Le Misanthrope, by Molière, at the Piccadilly in 1962. "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 117, 1967.

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• We shall be judged by what we do, not by how we felt while we were doing it.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Felt, Judged

  Review of Altona, by Jean-Paul Sartre, in 1961. "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 97, 1967.

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• Show me a congenital eavesdropper with the instincts of a Peeping Tom and I will show you the making of a dramatist.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Theatre, Instinct, Peeping

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• When a society has doubts about its future, it tends to produce spokesmen whose main appeal is to the emotions, who argue from intuitions, and whose claim to be truth-bearers rests solely on intense personal feeling.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Feelings, Doubt, Intuition

  "Tynan Right and Left : Plays, Films, People, Places and Events" by Kenneth Tynan, (p. 143), 1967.

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• Art and ideology often interact on each other; but the plain fact is that both spring from a common source. Both draw on human experience to explain mankind to itself; both attempt, in very different ways, to assemble coherence from seemingly unrelated phenomena; both stand guard for us against chaos.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Art, Spring, Different

  Kenneth Tynan (1961). “Curtains: Selections from the Drama Criticism and Related Writings”

  11 Copy quote

• The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional. Although they conceal an essential orifice, these pointless globes are as near as the human form can ever come to abstract art.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Art, Essentials, Body

  "Tynan Right and Left : Plays, Films, People, Places and Events" by Kenneth Tynan, (p. 432), 1967.

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• All writing is an antisocial act, since the writer is a man who can speak freely only when alone; to be himself he must lock himself up, to communicate he must cut himself off from all communication; and in this there is something always a little mad.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Communication, Writing, Cutting

  Kenneth Tynan (1961). “Curtains: Selections from the Drama Criticism and Related Writings”

  8 Copy quote

• If there's one thing I can't bear, it's people who are wise during the event.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Wise, Wisdom, People

  Kenneth Tynan, John Lahr (2002). “The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan”, p.185, A&C Black

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• A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Drama, Criticism, Theatre

  'Tynan Right and Left' (1967) foreword

  10 Copy quote

• Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Art, Strong, Forever

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• It is Ireland's sacred duty to send over, every few years, a playwright to save the English theater from inarticulate glumness.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Years, Sacred, Theater

  Kenneth Tynan (1964). “Tynan on theatre”

  8 Copy quote

• I do not see the E.E.C. [European Economic Community] as a great love affair. It's more like nine middle aged couples with failing marriages meeting at a Brussels hotel for a group grope.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Travel, Couple, Home

  9 Copy quote

• A useful word previously unknown to me: 'ergophobia', meaning 'fear or hatred of work'. At last I can define myself in one word.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Hatred, Lasts, One Word

  The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan (2001), entry for 26 Oct 1975.

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• All of life is more or less what the French would call s'imposer, to be able to create one's own terms for what one does.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Life, Doe, Able

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• The greatest films are those which show how society shapes man. The greatest plays are those which show how man shapes society.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Men, Play, Shapes

  Kenneth Tynan, John Lahr (2002). “The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan”, p.246, A&C Black

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• I attacked those Western playwrights who use their influence and affluence to preach to the world the nihilistic doctrine that life is pointless and irrationally destructive, and that there is nothing we can do about it. Until everyone is fed, clothed, housed and taught, until human beings have equal leisure to contemplate the overwhelming fact of mortality, we should not (I argued) indulge in the luxury of "privileged despair."

  Kenneth Tynan

  Indulge In, Luxury, Despair

  "Conference at Edinburgh (1963)". "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 146, 1967.

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• No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Theatre, Connections, World

  "Critic Kenneth Tynan Has Mellowed But Is Still England's Stingingest Gadfly" by Godfrey Smith, The New York Times, archive.nytimes.com. January 09, 1966.

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• I hope I never need to believe in God. It would be an awful confession of failure.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Believe, Would Be, Needs

  "Critic Kenneth Tynan Has Mellowed But Is Still England's Stingingest Gadfly" by Godfrey Smith, archive.nytimes.com. January 9, 1966.

  6 Copy quote

• Pearl is a disease of oysters. Levant is a disease of Hollywood.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Oysters, Hollywood, Pearls

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• A villain who shares one's guilt is inevitably more attractive than a hero convinced of one's innocence.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Hero, Guilt, Innocence

  Review of The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton (1961). "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 75, 1967.

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• The unique thing about Margaret Rutherford is that she can act with her chin alone. Among its many moods I especially cherish the chin commanding, the chin in doubt, and the chin at bay.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Unique, Doubt, Cherish

  Kenneth Tynan (1961). “Curtains: Selections from the Drama Criticism and Related Writings”

  7 Copy quote

• Judge and prosecutor had hammered it home that Lady Chatterly was an immoral woman, that she had had sexual relations before marriage, that she had committed adultery under her husband's roof; as if these charges somehow disqualified her from participation in serious literature. Indeed, there were long periods of the trial during which an outsider might well have assumed that a divorce case was being heard.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Husband, Home, Divorce

  "Lady Chatterly's Trial (The Old Bailey, 20 October - 2 November 1960)". "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 409, 1967.

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• What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Love, Art, Women

  Curtains pt. 2 (1961)

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