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Eugene O'Neill

28 quotes

“If a person is to get the meaning of life he must learn to like the facts about himself — ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity — before he can learn the truth behind the facts. And the truth is never ugly.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New York Herald Tribune (9 September 1956)
“Supposing I was to tell you that it's just Beauty that's calling me, the beauty of the far off and unknown, the mystery and spell of the East which lures me in the books I've read, the need of the freedom of great wide spaces, the joy of wandering on and on — in quest of the secret which is hidden over there, beyond the horizon?”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You mustn't feel sorry for me. Don't you see I'm happy at last — free — free! — freed from the farm — free to wander on and on — eternally! Look! Isn't it beautiful beyond the hills? I can hear the old voices calling me to come — And this time I'm going! It isn't the end. It's a free beginning — the start of my voyage! I've won to my trip — the right of release — beyond the horizon! Oh, you ought to be glad — glad — for my sake!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's queer they'd be allowin' the sick ones to read books when I'll bet it's the same lazy readin' in the house bought the half of them down with the consumption itself.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Irish as a Paddy's pig.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We'd be making sail in the dawn, with a fair breeze, singing a chanty song wid no care to it. And astern the land would be sinking low and dying out, but we'd give it no heed but a laugh, and never look behind. For the day that was, was enough, for we was free men — and I'm thinking 'tis only slaves do be giving heed to the day that's gone or the day to come — until they're old like me.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is it one wid this you'd be, Yank — black smoke from the funnels smudging the sea, smudging the decks — the bloody engines pounding and throbbing and shaking — wid divil a sight of sun or a breath of clean air — choking our lungs wid coal dust — breaking our backs and hearts in the hell of the stokehole — feeding the bloody furnace — feeding our lives along wid the coal, I'm thinking — caged in by steel from a sight of the sky like bloody apes in the Zoo!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Or rather, I inherited the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold and damned by it, as they say at the race track — damned in more ways than one.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You seem to be going in for sincerity today. It isn't becoming to you, really — except as an obvious pose. Be as artificial as you are, I advise. There's a sort of sincerity in that, you know. And, after all, you must confess you like that better.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It has been a long day. Why don't you sleep now—as you used to, remember?—for a little while.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have electrocuted your God. Don't be a fool.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't cry. The damned don't cry.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A credulous, religious-minded fool, as I've pointed out! And he carried his credulity into the next period of his life, where he believed in one social or philosophical Ism after another, always on the trail of Truth! He was never courageous enough to face what he really knew was true, that there is no truth for men, that human life is unimportant and meaningless. No. He was always grasping at some absurd new faith to find an excuse for going on!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One may not give one's soul to a devil of hate — and remain forever scatheless.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O Son of Man, I am Thou and Thou art I! Why hast Thou forsaken me? O Brother Who lived and loved and suffered and died with us, Who knoweth the tortured hearts of men, canst Thou not forgive — now — when I surrender all to Thee — when I have forgiven Thee — the love that Thou once took from me! … Ah! Thou hast heard me at last! Thou hast not forsaken me! Thou hast always loved me! I am forgiven! I can forgive myself — through Thee! I can believe!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no present or future — only the past happening over and over again — now.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But I suppose life has made him like that, and he can't help it. None of us can help the things life has done to us. They're done before you realize it, and once they're done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've lost your true self forever.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate doctors! They'll do anything — anything to keep you coming to them. They'll sell their souls! What's worse, they'll sell yours, and you never know it till one day you find yourself in hell!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It wasn't the fog I minded, Cathleen. I really love fog. It hides you from the world and the world from you. You feel that everything has changed, and nothing is what it seemed to be. No one can find or touch you any more. Its the foghorn I hate. It won't let you alone. It keeps reminding you, and warning you, and calling you back.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How thick the fog is. I can't see the road. All the people in the world could pass by and I would never know. I wish it was always that way. It's getting dark already. It will soon be night, thank goodness.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It kills the pain. You go back until at last you are beyond its reach. Only the past when you were happy is real.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm as drunk as a fiddler's bitch.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, I remember. I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What the hell was it I wanted to buy, I wonder, that was worth—Well no matter. It's a late day for regrets.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I listen to people talking about this universal breakdown we are in and I marvel at their stupid cowardice. It is so obvious that they deliberately cheat themselves because their fear of change won't let them face the truth. They don't want to understand what has happened to them. All they want is to start the merry-go-round of blind greed all over again. They no longer know what they want this country to be, what they want it to become, where they want it to go. It has lost all meaning for them except as pig-wallow. And so their lives as citizens have no beginnings, no ends. They have lost the ideal of the Land of the Free. Freedom demands initiative, courage, the need to decide what life must mean to oneself. To them, that is terror. They explain away their spiritual cowardice by whining that the time for individualism is past, when it is their courage to possess their own souls which is dead — and stinking! No, they don't want to be free. Slavery means security — of a kind, the only kind they have courage for. It means they need not to think. They have only to obey orders from owners who are, in turn, their slaves!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can begin to create new goals for ourselves, ends for our days! A new discipline for life will spring into being, a new will and power to live, a new ideal to measure the value of our lives by! … We need a new leader who will teach us that ideal, who by his life will exemplify it and make it a living truth for us — a man who will prove that man's fleeting life in time and space can be noble. We need, above all, to learn again to believe in the possibility of nobility of spirit in ourselves! A new savior must be born who will reveal to us how we can be saved from ourselves, so that we can be free of the past and inherit the future and not perish by it!”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I haven't touched a piano in so many years. I couldn't play with such crippled fingers, even if I wanted to. For a time after my marriage I tried to keep up my music. But it was hopeless. One-night stands, cheap hotels, dirty trains, leaving children, never having a home — [She stares at her hands with fascinated disgust.] See, Cathleen, how ugly they are! So maimed and crippled! You would think they'd been through some horrible accident! [She gives a strange little laugh.] So they have, come to think of it. [She suddenly thrusts her hands behind her back.] I won't look at them. They're worse than the foghorn for reminding me — [Then with defiant self-assurance.] But even they can't touch me now. [She brings her hands from behind her back and deliberately stares at them — calmly.] They're far away. I see them, but the pain has gone.”
Eugene O'Neill (1888–1953) said by 1953 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source