Kenneth Tynan Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The man who reacts to the universe with a cry of impotent anguish is acceptable as an artist only if he can persuade us that he has sanely considered the other possible reactions and found them inadequate.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Artist, Men, Cry

  Kenneth Tynan (1964). “Tynan on theatre”

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• Pornography is writing that seeks primarily, even exclusively, to bring about sexual stimulation. This can be done crudely or delicately. In the former case it would be bad literature; in the latter good.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Writing, Creative, Would Be

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• I doubt if I could love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Doubt, Wish, Looks

  1956 In the Observer, 13 May

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• Drama criticism ... is a self-knowing account of the way in which one's consciousness has been modified during an evening at the theatre.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Drama, Self, Knowing

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• Among the classic tastes: bread sauce, Nuits St Georges Les Perdrix 1962, Worcestershire sauce, Toblerone and Bovril.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Food, Sauce, Taste

  Kenneth Tynan, John Lahr (2002). “The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan”, p.166, A&C Black

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• The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Body, Buttocks, Parts Of The Body

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

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• William Congreve is the only sophisticated playwright England has produced; and like Shaw, Sheridan, and Wilde, his nearest rivals, he was brought up in Ireland.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Rivals, England, Sophisticated

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

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• Not content to have the audience in the palm of his hand, he goes one further and clenches his fist.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Hands, Fists, Performing

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

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• Dichotomy = operation performed on lesbians to make them normal.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Normal, Operations, Dichotomy

  The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan (2001), entry for 11 Oct 1977.

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• A novel is a static thing that one moves through; a play is a dynamic thing that moves past one.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Drama, Moving, Past

  1961 Curtains.

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• The sheer complexity of writing a play always had dazzled me. In an effort to understand it, I became a critic.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Writing, Play, Effort

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• When you've seen all of Ionesco's plays, I felt at the end, you've seen one of them.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Play, Ends, Felt

  "Tynan Right and Left : Plays, Films, People, Places and Events" by Kenneth Tynan, (p. 36), 1967.

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• There, standing at the piano, was the original good time who had been had by all.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Fear, Piano, Good Times

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• The vengeful hag is played by Ingrid Bergman, which is like casting Eleanor Roosevelt as Lizzie Borden.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Casting, Bergman, Vengeful

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• Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself

  Kenneth Tynan

  Art, Artist, Art Is

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• Does the critic wish to influence the kind of film that costs more than £250,000? It is as if he were to send a postcard to General Motors explaining that he would like them to make a raft next year, or a helicopter, instead of a car.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Years, Car, Wish

  "Footnote on Cinema". "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 260, 1967.

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• A city whose living immediacy is so urgent that when I am in it I lose all sense of the past.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Past, Cities, Immediacy

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• Western man, especially the Western critic, still find it very had to go into print and say: "I recommend you to go and see this because it gave me an erection."

  Kenneth Tynan

  Men, Critics, Print

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• A good many inconveniences attend playgoing in any large city, but the greatest of them is usually the play itself.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Art, Play, Cities

  1957 In the New York Herald Tribune.

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• Any country that has sexual censorship will eventually have political censorship.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Country, Political, Censorship

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

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• In most writers, style is a welcome, an invitation, a letting down of the drawbridge between the artist and the world. Shaw had no time for such ruses. Unlike most of his countrymen, he abominated charm, which he regarded as evidence of chronic temperamental weakness.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Artist, Style, Weakness

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

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• Everyone is vulnerable who is at once gifted and gregarious.

  Kenneth Tynan

  Vulnerable, Gregarious, Gifted

  "Orson Welles (1961)". "Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events". Book by Kenneth Tynan, p. 297, 1967.

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