A Quote by Samuel Johnson

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Authors Civility Farce Life Most Reciprocal Scenes

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

Foolish: It's all foolish. Life is a farce a stupid, sickening farce played out by fools.

David Gemmell

Comedy speaks for civilization; farce bears an ill-concealed, sometimes unconcealed animus against civilization. Often against civility too.

Irving Howe

I find that most of my scripts have a lot more scenes than most films, so the average movie might have 100 scenes, my average script has 300 scenes.

Steven Zaillian

Most of the pathetic scenes in almost everybody's life are scenes unnoted by anyone and totally disregarded by the person in question.

John Cowper Powys

Are my characters copies of people in real life? ... Don't ever believe the stories about authors putting people into novels. That idea is a kind of joke on both authors and readers. All the readers believe that authors do it. All the authors know that it can't be done.

Ayn Rand

Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.

Dick Cavett

The parallels between a stage and a book are compelling. You, like all authors, create 'characters' in a 'setting' who speak 'dialogue' encased in 'scenes.' Most importantly, you - like the playwright - have an 'audience.'

Nancy Kress

While it's true that Washington would benefit from more civility, the Senate, behind the scenes, is an extraordinarily collegial institution.

Jon Kyl

Life works most perfectly when a reciprocal love relationship is in place between man and God.

Beth Moore

People would react to books by authors like James and Austen almost on a gut level. I think it was not so much the message, because the best authors do not have obvious messages. These authors were disturbing to my students because of their perspectives on life.

Azar Nafisi

The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I've been in so many funeral scenes from The Sopranos, and I think I've even been in one on Sons of Anarchy. Those scenes, as a human being, are the most tedious scenes, of all time. You're waiting, all day, in the blistering hot heat. So, I didn't need to be there.

Drea De Matteo

If melodrama is the quintessence of drama, farce is the quintessence of theatre. Melodrama is written. A moving image of the worldis provided by a writer. Farce is acted. The writer's contribution seems not only absorbed but translated.... One cannot imagine melodrama being improvised. The improvised drama was pre-eminently farce.

Eric Bentley

John Stuart Mill, in his wonderful 1859 book On Liberty, talks about civility. And this is why you should always be concerned about calls for civility. He points out that civility ends up getting defined by the people who are in charge. And you'll notice that when people argue for civility, they tend to actually believe that whatever they say is civil. And if they're angry about it, it's righteous rage. But if you say it and it's kind of sharp or mean, then it's incivil. ... And sometimes, disagreement-to be productive-can't be all that civil.

Greg Lukianoff

I'd prefer to include sex scenes alongside the adventure scenes and everyday-life scenes, as if they were all part of the same thing. Which of course they are. Sex is not discrete from the rest of our existence.