"Things get shaped straight and thin for reasons of aerodynamics. Missiles and skyscrapers are shaped the way they are on the soundest principles of engineering, not as monuments to the dick. In fact, so is the dick. The dick is shaped like a dick because that is the most efficient shape for a dick to be. That's why it's dick shaped. I mean a dick shaped like a table would cause all sorts of practical spatial problems."

"The earth only has so much bounty to offer and inventing ever larger and more notional prices for that bounty does not change its real value."

"No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi."

"The appropriation of radical thinking by lazy, self-obsessed hippies is a public relations disaster that could cost the earth."

"Lies are as important as truth, for without lies, the truth is worthless."

"Leave a message, don't leave a message. live, die, it's all the same dream."

"Brecht always liked people to be aware that they were in a theatre. I said to him more than once, but Brecht, what makes you think they think they're anywhere else?"

"Masturbation is the thinking man's television."

"Archie Rice: Don't clap too hard – it's a very old building."

"Archie Rice: I'm dead behind these eyes. I'm dead, just like the whole inert, shoddy lot out there. It doesn't matter because I don't feel a thing, and neither do they."

"Archie Rice: Let me know where you're working tomorrow night and I'll come and see you."

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs."

"Jimmy Porter: They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past."

"George Dillon: [I]t's easy to answer the ultimate questions – it saves you bothering with the immediate ones."

"This is a letter of hate. It is for you my countrymen, I mean those men of my country who have defiled it. The men with manic fingers leading the sightless, feeble, betrayed body of my country to its death."

"John Osborne spoke out in a vein of ebullient, free-wheeling rancour that betokened the arrival of something new in the theatre – a sophisticated, articulate lower-class. Most of the critics were offended by Jimmy Porter, but not on account of his anger; a working-class hero is expected to be angry. What nettled them was something quite different: his self-confidence. This was no envious inferior whose insecurity they could pity."

"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs."

"I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth."

"Had it any been but she, And that very face, There had been at least ere this A dozen dozen in her place."

"I prithee send me back my heart, Since I cannot have thine; For if from yours you will not part, Why then shouldst thou have mine?"

"But love is such a mystery, I cannot find it out; For when I think I'm best resolv'd, I then am most in doubt."

"Out upon it! I have lov'd Three whole days together; And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather.Time shall moult away his wings, Ere he shall discover In the whole wide world again Such a constant lover."

"Her cheeks so rare a white was on, No daisy makes comparison (Who sees them is undone); For streaks of red were mingled there, Such as are on a Catherine pear (The side that's next the sun)."

"Her lips were red; and one was thin, Compar'd to that was next her chin (Some bee had stung it newly)."

"She's a savour to the glass, An excuse to make it pass."

"If I a fancy take To black and blue, That fancy doth it beauty make."

"Women enjoy'd (whate'er before th' have been) Are like romances read, or sights once seen: Fruition's dull, and spoils the play much more Than if one read or knew the plot before. 'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear; Heaven were not heaven, if we knew what it were."

"They who know all the wealth they have, are poor; He's only rich that cannot tell his store."

"O! for some honest lover's ghost, Some kind unbodied post Sent from the shades below! I strangely long to know, Whether the nobler chaplets wear, Those that their mistress' scorn did bear, Or those that were us'd kindly."

"'Tis now, since I sat down before That foolish fort, a heart, (Time strangely spent), a year and more, And still I did my part."

"I thought to undermine the heart By whispering in the ear."

"Sure Beauty's empires, like to greater states, Have certain periods set, and hidden fates."

"The maid—and thereby hangs a tale; For such a maid no Whitson-ale Could ever yet produce: No grape, that’s kindly ripe, could be So round, so plump, so soft as she, Nor half so full of juice."

"High characters (cries one); and he would see Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor ne'er will be."

"Just so, i' th' nick! i' th' very nick of time!"

"She's pretty to walk with, And witty to talk with, And pleasant, too, to think on."

"Her face is like the Milky Way i' the sky, A meeting of gentle lights without a name."

"A health to the nut-brown lass, With the hazel eyes: let it pass. ... As much to the lively grey; 'Tis as good i' th' night as day."

"Love is the fart Of every heart; It pains a man when 'tis kept close, And others doth offend when 'tis let loose."

"Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they fear'd the light: But O, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight."

"Why so pale and wan, fond lover Prithee, why so pale? Will, when looking well can't move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee, why so pale? ... Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move: This cannot take her. If of herself she cannot love, Nothing can make her: The devil take her!"

"Our sins, like to our shadows, When our day is in its glory, scarce appear: Towards our evening how great and monstrous They are!"

"But, as when an authentic watch is shown, Each man winds up and rectifies his own; So in our very judgments."

"The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman: Mahu, Mahu is his name."

"In night when colours all to black are cast, Distinction lost, or gone down with the light; The eye — a watch to inward senses placed, Not seeing, yet still having power of sight — Gives vain alarums to the inward sense."

"Three things there be in man's opinion dear, Fame, many friends, and fortune's dignities: False visions all, which in our sense appear, To sanctify desire's idolatry."

"Love is no true-made looking-glass Which perfect yields the shape we bring; It ugly shows us all that was, And flatters every future thing."