People From Birmingham

"No theater could sanely flourish until there was an umbilical connection between what was happening on the stage and what was happening in the world."

"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car."

"I hope I never need to believe in God. It would be an awful confession of failure."

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

"I doubt if there are very many rational people in this world to whom the word "fuck" is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden."

"I believe in neither a director’s nor a writer’s theatre, but a theatre of intelligent audiences. I count myself as a member of an intelligent audience, and I wrote to you as such. That you should disagree with me I can understand, but that you should resent my expressing my opinions is something that frankly amazes me. I thought we had outgrown the idea of theatre as a mystic rite born of secret communion between author, director, actors and an empty auditorium."

"[A]t the end he had broken through frontiers of language and feeling that one had hitherto thought inviolable ..."

"Lenny Bruce ... [is] the most original, free-speaking, wild-thinking gymnast of language this inhibited island has ever engaged to amuse its citizens."

"Useless, of course, to point out that the genesis of good plays is hardly ever abstract; that it tends, on the contrary, to be something as concrete and casual as a glance intercepted, a remark overheard, or an insignificant news item buried at the bottom of page three. Yet it is by trivialities like these that the true playwright's blood is fired. They spur him to story-telling; they bring on the narrative fit that is his glory and his basic credential. Show me a congenital eavesdropper with the instincts of a peeping Tom, and I will show you the makings of a dramatist. Only the makings, of course: curiosity about people is merely the beginning of the road to the masterpiece: but if that curiosity is sustained you will find, when the rules have been mastered and the end has been reached, that a miracle has happened."

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

"Ken, the Tot of Destiny, had turned into the Marquis de Sade, and I in response had become a virago."

"Tynan's interests cover an unusually broad range, and his references are equally wide: How many other critics would quote Seneca on Humphrey Bogart or Coleridge on the Beatles? … As a theater critic he has been extremely influential, and always in useful directions. Sometimes his concern for the state of contemporary drama leads him to overestimate particular plays for their tactical importance in the struggle for the sort of theater he would like to see … the state of British theater is far healthier now than it was when Tynan first appeared on the scene, and for this he can take some credit. … Like all good critics sooner or later, he has come up against the form and content argument, and like all good critics (at least when it is put in either-or terms) he comes down on the side of content. … Like George Orwell he has the ability always to pick on the important issues even when briefly reviewing a film or play which is in itself of little interest. He raises the right questions even if he does not always come up with the right answers, and usually he does come up with the right answers. Almost without exception he is readable and stimulating, whatever the subject; he is very honest, and often funny. If he is too interested in himself, there are after all a lot of people who are much less interesting."

"The hero of Tynan Right and Left is, as the title suggests, Tynan. The ostensible subject matter is of course wider, for the book consists of Tynan's writing over the past 10 years, not only in his capacities as theater and cinema reviewer but also as the author of occasional pieces, interviews and essays on a wide variety of people … But whatever he is writing about Tynan never forgets the subject on which he is the leading world expert: namely Kenneth Tynan, cultural journalist, moralist, socialist. "Occupation: opinion-monger observer of artistic phenomena, amateur ideologue.""

"It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will."

"I do not see the EEC as a great love affair. It is more like nine middle-aged couples with failing marriages meeting at a Brussels hotel for a group grope."

"Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding."

"She shows herself to the audience like the Host to the congregation."

"Her style looks absurdly simple — an effortless act of projection, a serpentine lasso whereby her voice casually winds itself around our most vulnerable fantasies. But it is not easy. It is what remains when ingratiation, sentimentality and the manifold devices of heart-warming crap have been ruthlessly pared away. Steel and silk are left, shining and durable."

"His puritan, muscular, moor-tramping soul (superbly mirrored in Higgins's hymn to the intellect in Pygmalion) bred in him a loathing of all things, whether poems or gadgets, that were designed to comfort the human condition without actively trying to improve it."

"If we're offensive and pose a threat You fear what we represent is a mess You've missed the message that says it all And you'll never know why Oh no, you'll never know why We rock"

"I warned you then and I'm warning you now If you mess with me you're playing with fire Winds of change that are fanning the flames Will carry you to your funeral pyre"

"They live a life of fear and insecurity And all you do is pay for their prosperity The ministry of fear that won't let you live The ministry of grace that doesn't forgive Do what you will to try and make me conform I'll make you wish that you had never been born"

"I'm just a Rock and Roll Butthole, I tell you no lies, they say I worship the devil, they must be stupid or blind"

"Howling in the shadows, living in a lunar spell, he finds his heaven, spewing from the mouth of hell."

"If you want to be fucking individual, don't get a tattoo. Every fucker's got one these days."

"You've got to believe in yourself Or no one will believe in you Imagination like a bird on the wing Flying free for you to use"

"And they don't really know even what they're talkin' about And I can't image what empty heads can achieve Leave me alone, don't want your promises no more 'Cos rock & roll is my religion and my law Won't ever change, may think it's strange You can't kill rock & roll, it's here to stay"

"I had a vision, l saw the world burn And the seas had turned red The sun had fallen, the final curtain In the land of the dead Mother, please show the children Before it's too late To fight each other, there's no one winning We must fight all the hate"

"I've been the king, I've been the clown, now broken wings can't hold me down, I'm free again. The jester with the broken crown, it won't be me this time around to love in vain."

"Everybody's having fun, except me I'm the lonely one I live in shame."

"I've listened to preachers, I've listened to fools I've watched all the dropouts Who make their own rules We're pushed and conditioned to rule and control The media sells it and you live the role"

"Nobody ever told me, I found out for myself, You gotta believe in foolish miracles, it's not how you play the game, it's if you win or lose, you can choose, don't confuse Win or lose, it's up to you."

"People look to me and say Is the end near, when is the final day? What's the future of mankind? How do I know, I got left behind"

"It was my fate to be who I am and what I am. I've just been myself. And I've got a great manager."

"I know what's going to be on my tombstone, and there's no getting around it: "Here lies Ozzy Osbourne, the ex–Black Sabbath singer who bit the head off a bat.""

"You don't accidentally become an asshole. It takes a bit of work."

"Sharon's father was a gangster manager, so she's a great businesswoman. I remember saying to her once, "What's always amazed me is that you've been in the music business most of your life, but when you sing, you sound like a fucking dying wildebeest." She said, "What's always amazed me is how you've been in the music business most of your life and you don't know the ass end of a contract.""

"People ask me, "Do you regret anything?" Sure, I have fucking regrets. But if I didn't have my life the way it's been or the way it's gonna be, I'd be fucking with the big guy in the sky."

"When I heard "She Loves You," my world went up like a shooting star. It was a divine experience. The planets changed. I used to fantasize that Paul McCartney would marry my sister."

"Back in the day, it was, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." Where in the fuck was San Francisco? And the only flowers we ever saw in Aston were on a coffin going to a cemetery."

"My problem is that by the time I understood a little bit about life, I was well on the way to fucking burnout."

"I grew up in Aston, a neighborhood in Birmingham, right at the poverty line. I always felt shitty and intimidated by everyone. So my whole thing was to act crazy and make people laugh so they wouldn't jump on me."

"Survival is my legacy … I mean, I'm 73. People go, "Well, you're 70… why don't I throw the towel in?" … Why should I? People still want to buy my records. People still want to see me, so why should I? It motivates me to get off my backside and do something. I mean, if my career had gone down the toilet and I knew it was the end, I'd be pretty miserable. … Never give up. If you've got a passion for something, you've got to find a way around it to carry on the passion."

"David Fricke: You were arrested in 1989 for trying to kill her in a drunken rage."

"David Fricke: You've been married to Sharon for 20 years. What was it that first attracted you to her?"

"David Fricke: Given your own history of substance abuse, what have you said to your children about drugs and alcohol?"

"Ozzy Osbourne: My home was very poor. My father worked nights as a toolmaker. He was the English Archie Bunker; he wouldn't change with the times. He would never buy my mom a washing machine. We had a boiler house in the garden — you'd put a fire under this copper boiler, where you would boil the clothes to death. I used to sleep in a bed with one of my brothers. We had no sheets. We had to use old coats. When I was a young kid, my father would take me on Sunday mornings with my Uncle Jim to the pub, the Golden Cross. Since I wasn't allowed in, I'd sit on the step, and they'd bring me a shandy, which is half lemonade, half beer. I remember thinking, “Beer must be the best lemonade in the world. I can’t wait until the age when I can drink it.” When I had my first beer, I spat it out: “That can’t be the fucking stuff. It’s like dishwater.” But then I got the glow. I didn't drink for the taste — I did it for the feeling."

"Ozzy Osbourne: My son, Jack Osbourne, gets pissed off sometimes. He said to me one day, “Dad, the difference is whether people are laughing with you or at you.” I said, “As long as they’re laughing, it doesn’t matter.”"

"I never did this black-magic stuff. The reason I did “Mr.Crowley” on my first solo album Blizzard of Ozz, 1980 was that everybody was talking about Aleister Crowley. Jimmy Page bought his house, and one of my roadies worked with one of his roadies. I thought, “Mr. Crowley, who are you? Where are you from?” But people would hear the song and go, “He’s definitely into witchcraft.”"

"We rehearsed at a community center near Tony Iommi’s house, across the road from a movie theater. One morning, Tony says to us, “It’s interesting. I was looking over at the theater.” It was showing something like The Vampire Returns. “Don’t you think it’s weird that people pay money to be scared? Maybe we should write scary music.” That's when we came up with “Black Sabbath” [hums the guitar riff]. That was the fucking change of my life."