Eric Bogosian Quotes & Sayings

When the West overpowered native populations, these actions, no matter how violent, were rationalized as manifestations of the natural order of things. "Manifest destiny" and "social Darwinism" laid the foundation for violent improvement of the world. Europeans saw themselves as superior and naturally born to rule. They believed that their domination of faraway lands brought "civilization" to the natives. In return, the rulers of the empires benefited. "The purpose of colonies was to supply the mother country with raw materials and to provide a market for her manufactured goods, — Eric Bogosian

I'm not hip, I'm not cool, I'm not glib. — Eric Bogosian

At least I admit that I don't know. I know that things are fucked up, beyond belief, and I have nothing original to say about it. — Eric Bogosian

I write, but I also act. — Eric Bogosian

I'm always surprised by things that happen to my work. — Eric Bogosian

I do write about people who are complex and are striving with something and can't quite get past their own stuff, which would be a proxy for myself because that's what the deal is with me. — Eric Bogosian

It's a mental fake-out to myself. I make believe I'm making a new show so I forget the material I was working on and make up some fresh material. — Eric Bogosian

I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing. — Eric Bogosian

Ensemble is hard to do. It's like 3-D chess. — Eric Bogosian

I don't know anybody who does what I do. I'm very underground. — Eric Bogosian

British prime minister William Gladstone summed up the West's opinion of "the Turk": Let me endeavor very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline, what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mahometanism simply, but of Mahometanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mahometans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and, as far as their dominion reached, civilisation disappeared from view. — Eric Bogosian

I write for an audience that likes what I like, reads what I read, thinks about the things I think about. In many ways, this puts me in opposition to the people who go to the theater generally. — Eric Bogosian

I mean, what kind of literature do you think ants would make if they could read? Not F. Scott Fuckin' Fitzgerald, not Joyce or D-D - D-Dostoyevsky, not even friggin' Steinbeck. Wouldn't make any sense to 'em. You ever read Nabokov's Lolita? Best book of the twentieth century, but old-fashioned my friend, old fuckin' fashioned. Same old story over and over again, one more guy mesmerized by his own dick, wandering around the wreckage of his life. Who the fuck cares about that? Give me the Knights of the Round Table! Give me Merlin! Or better, the "wine dark sea"! Much more interesting. — Eric Bogosian

It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off — Eric Bogosian

I'm very underground. — Eric Bogosian

Turkish." Vocabulary was deleted, new words added. Place-names all over the country were Turkified (for example, "Smyrna" became "Izmir"), which only added confusion and another obfuscating layer to the buildup of historical sediment. — Eric Bogosian

I started acting when I was in high school, started writing when I got to New York in 1975. — Eric Bogosian

For a long time, my shows were about people walking out or about getting my gigs canceled or having the presenter not wanting to pay me. — Eric Bogosian

Impact of this makeover has been to significantly impede historical research, and it is one of Ataturk's most devastating accomplishments. — Eric Bogosian

Legislation was passed that seemed to welcome any surviving Armenians back to their homes, and at least on paper, Christians and Jews were to be treated like any other citizens in Turkey. But this was a very cold and toxic embrace. The Turkish government was no longer engaged in an organized system of deportation, but with Kemal's endorsement, the ethnic cleansing of Anatolia would continue. — Eric Bogosian

He who kills even one unbeliever of those who rule over us, whether he does it secretly or openly, shall be rewarded by God. — Eric Bogosian

As soon as the dirt is hitting the casket, it'll all be forgotten. — Eric Bogosian

Kemal's former opponents in the CUP, all dead by 1930, were resuscitated as heroes in the Turkish national consciousness. — Eric Bogosian

Jeff: I'm saying I don't need a limousine to know who I am, alright?
Tim: Right on. You know what? He doesn't need to limo, man.
Jeff: I mean, you know, at least I admit I don't know. I know that things are fucked up beyond belief and I know that I have nothing original to say about any of it, alright? I don't have an answer. I don't have a fucking message.
Tim: Okay, great. Well, now he's crying. Are you guys happy? — Eric Bogosian

Vision, of the Ittihadists and, by extension, Kemal Ataturk, did not include the non-Muslim population of what was once the Ottoman Empire. — Eric Bogosian

If you say city to people, people have no problem thinking of the city as rife with problematic, screwed-up people, but if you say suburbs - and I'm not the first person to say this, it's been said over and over again in literature - there's a sense of normalcy. — Eric Bogosian

The struggle within Turkey that continues to this day is the legacy of Kemal Ataturk's radical reformation, — Eric Bogosian

If all I ever wrote about was inner city freaks, I think it would be dishonest. — Eric Bogosian

And if nobody ever hears from me again,
It would be okay,
And if nobody ever knows where I am,
I won't mind,
Because I would know where I am,
And than is the most important thing. — Eric Bogosian

The world intrudes in my brain daily. Since my brain is dripping with all kinds of stuff that's out there in the world, that I can't seem to be able to shut out, it has to end up being in my work as well. — Eric Bogosian

I know that I'm inadequate, but I never thought that at seventeen. I thought I was doing the best I could. I thought I was being idealistic. — Eric Bogosian

There is a larger lesson here, because the book encompasses not just the lives of prisoners in a Soviet prison camp, but every one of us. Shukhov squeezes everything he can out of a mouthful of soup or a bite of bread ... So frozen that he can't even feel his feet, he trowels cement and lays a cinder block wall with care and patience ... Shukhov takes pride in his work. In fact, even though he is starving, he can barely tear himself away at the end of the long day to go eat. He cares about his work and in that way he remains a man. Isn't this kind of pride and gratitude and ironic detachment valuable for all people? — Eric Bogosian

There is nothing more boring than people who love you. — Eric Bogosian

Well, the real Eric Bogosian is pretty self-conscious of himself. — Eric Bogosian

We all know, either implicitly or explicitly, that all we really have is our place in the memories of others. We exist to the degree that we know and remember one another. Even the most isolated among us. We share a collective understanding that we are all part of a greater whole. Perhaps — Eric Bogosian

If we all knew we were going to live to be 150 years old, we'd all approach our lives very differently. — Eric Bogosian

The Turkish language has changed so radically since the time of Kemal's "Nutuk" that a Turk living today would not be able to understand his actual words. The speech literally has to be translated for contemporary Turkish speakers. Most important, any record, history, or document created prior to 1929 is totally unreadable by all Turks — Eric Bogosian

Many devout Muslims, particularly in the east, understood that attacking helpless people, nonbelievers or not, was contrary to the tenets of Islam. Still, a vast number of Muslims saw the pronouncement of jihad as an endorsement for killing and looting. — Eric Bogosian

I love playing other people's work. I love acting. — Eric Bogosian

I was definitely surprised when Talk Radio took off as a play. As a film it has become somewhere between a popular thing and a cult thing. — Eric Bogosian

I'm not a light-hearted person, so I can't think light-hearted at work. — Eric Bogosian

From my perspective of a guy in his late forties, its becoming more and more clear to me that the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do all depend on what part of life you are looking at it from. — Eric Bogosian

Denial itself was institutionalized as a government function. Since 1923, the Turkish government has spent tens of millions of dollars in a concerted disinformation campaign to delude the world at large and, perhaps more important, its own people. — Eric Bogosian

Morgenthau quotes — Eric Bogosian

I'm a first class passenger on the Spaceship Earth, and I got one ticket. And I gotta make the ride count, you know? And, as far as I figure, you can either take the service road or the scenic route. And, man, if I only have one ride, I want it to be beautiful.
84. Highway. — Eric Bogosian

Adolf von Gordon's last words at the trial are ironic: I should be far from passing a final judgment on Talat the man. What can be said objectively I said at the start. But I do wish to state one more thing: like many of his comrades, he certainly worked for the extermination of the Armenian people in order to create a purely pan-Turkish state; he certainly here used means that seem intolerable to us Europeans. — Eric Bogosian

Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit. — Eric Bogosian

Formal declaration of jihad in Constantinople, followed by well-organized demonstrations on the streets.32 Proclamations and pamphlets were distributed. — Eric Bogosian

I provide the bricks and mortar with the words and situations - the director and the actors and the designers build the house. — Eric Bogosian