Ayckbourn Quotes & Sayings

You do develop a taste as an actress: Chekhov, Ayckbourn: it's the combination of comedy and human drama. I would never want to do anything without comedy. — Katherine Parkinson

If something doesn't start out right, it won't end up right. — J.J. Staples

Crimea has always been and remains Russian, as well as Ukrainian, Crimean-Tatar, Greek (after all, there are Greeks living there) and German - and it will be home to all of those peoples. As for state affiliation, the people living in Crimea made their choice; it should be treated with respect, and Russia cannot do otherwise. I hope that our neighbouring and distant partners will ultimately treat this the same way, since in this case, the highest criteria used to establish the truth can only be the opinion of the people themselves. — Vladimir Putin

During our meetings in Peshawar, Abdul Haq...asked me why the United States does not pay attention to terrorism. He compared America to a huge elephant: "One hundred people push on it and it doesn't blink, but when it decides to move, it lumbers forward and crushes everything. — Peter Tomsen

A gentleman ... sleeps at his work. That's what work's for. Why do you think they have the SILENCE notices in the library? So as not to disturb me in my little nook behind the biography shelves. — Alan Ayckbourn

Fear is a snare that prevents us from moving forward, fear makes us an easy bait for the devil — Sunday Adelaja

As a writer one is allowed to have conversations with oneself. What is considered sane in writers is made for the rest of the human race. — Alan Ayckbourn

Cats names are more for human benefit. They give one a certain degree more confidence that the animal belongs to you. — Alan Ayckbourn

Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare. — Alan Ayckbourn

Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money. — Alan Ayckbourn

He really is terribly heavy going. Like running up hill in roller skates. — Alan Ayckbourn

Getting calcium from plants might seem a little strange in a society that is so focused on dairy foods as a source of calcium, but some research suggests that even omnivores get as much as 40 percent of their calcium from plant foods. While a strong dairy lobby has convinced many consumers that milk and other dairy foods are essential for a healthy diet, the ability to drink milk into adulthood is not the norm throughout the world. Normal development throughout most of the world involves a gradual loss of the enzyme needed to digest milk sugar after children are weaned from breast milk. We refer to the lack of this enzyme as "lactose intolerance." But that's definitely a western bias since this "intolerance" is not a lack or an abnormality; it's part of normal human development in most people. — Jack Norris

There is a school of thought that believes that sleep is for the night. You appear to be out to disprove them. — Alan Ayckbourn

If you are flattering a woman, it pays to be a little more subtle. You don't have to bother with men, they believe any compliment automatically. — Alan Ayckbourn

Salad, I can't bear salad. It grows while you're eating it, you know. — Alan Ayckbourn

She'd missed the way he walked, the way he shoved his hands into his pockets when he was nervous, the way his dark hair fell into his mismatched eyes. The way a smile would flicker across his face before he committed to it, the way he looked at her like she was the only person in the world. — Kate Lattey

I think of a plot, I think of an idea, and then I wonder, How can I get that onto the stage? ... Whatever devices you use should always be there to serve the theme. If the theme has been overtaken by the device, then something's wrong. — Alan Ayckbourn

The darker the subject, the more light you must try to shed on the matter. And vice versa. — Alan Ayckbourn

A lot of times, you have an idea, and all the things you are thinking about might fuel it. But that's not where the idea came from. — Spike Jonze

A comedy is just a tragedy interrupted, I once said. Do you finish with the kiss or when she opens her eyes to tell him she loves him and sees blonde hairs on his collar? — Alan Ayckbourn

If you have had no tension in your life, never been screwed up by problems, your mortality well within your own grasp, and someone tells you that God so loved you that He gave His Son to die for you, nothing but good manners will keep you from being amused. — Oswald Chambers

There are very few people on top of life, and the rest of us don't like them very much. — Alan Ayckbourn

I fell in love with Alan Ayckbourn the day I met him and, starting with 'The Norman Conquests,' went on to do eight plays with him. He tells you just what you want to know and has a brilliant way of solving problems. — Michael Gambon

What I find interesting is how close you can run the laughter along the seam of seriousness, and occasionally cross it, so that half the house genuinely doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Custard pie humour is fairly universal, but at the other end, which I'm more interested in, there's the humour that hovers on the darkness, that walks in the shadow of something else, not always that obvious. — Alan Ayckbourn

I needed to touch her. In that moment, it had become as necessary to me as air. — S.L. Jennings