Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.
People try to make a Greek tragedy of my life, and they can't do it. I'm too happy.
When people divorce, it's always such a tragedy. At the same time, if people stay together it can be even worse.
Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.
In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.
As I obsess about my ancient problems, I feel more like I'm sinking in quicksand than lighting a torch. I'm creating neither heat nor light, just the icky, perversely pleasurable squish of self-pity between my toes. My only defense is that I'm not the only one down here in the muck - our whole culture is doting on tales of personal tragedy.
Right after the tragedy, President Bush asked Americans to get on with their lives and we did.
Because of my success in the private sector, I had the chance to run America's largest city for 12 years, governing in the wake of its greatest tragedy.
None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry.
For a comedienne, you have to have a little tragedy or a dark side, just not too much. Otherwise it's too disruptive.
There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience.
There's every reason to believe there will be further attacks attempted against the United States. For us to spend so much time patting ourselves on the back because we got bin Laden that we miss the next attack would be a terrible tragedy.
Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.
Gay icons usually have some tragedy in their lives, but I've only had tragic haircuts and outfits.
The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.
The abduction of a child is a tragedy. No one can fully understand or appreciate what a parent goes through at such a time, unless they have faced a similar tragedy. Every parent responds differently. Each parent copes with this nightmare in the best way he or she knows how.
The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
In times of war, starvation, hunger and injustice, such tragedy can only be put aside if you allow yourself to be uplifted through music, film and dance.
The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.
I miss Lisa 'Left Eye' every day. Watched her VH1 special many times. A tragedy. But I didn't see the movie based on her.
The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.
Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.
My book 'Trust Your Heart', which is the story of my life, will be followed by 'Singing Lessons', a memoir of love, loss, hope, and healing, which talks about the death of my son and the hope that has been the aftermath of the healing from that tragedy.
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
When your first marriage goes into tragedy, you become very battle-scarred... I even thought of suicide. Luckily, I had known some happy marriages.
The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.
I think I would cope like anyone copes with any tragedy. I'm sure I would be very upset for a while and then there would come a point where I would either have to stay in this place of darkness and anger, or I'd have to accept that it happened.
I want people to understand that tragedy and trial does not necessarily mean that you are a victim.
When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness.
The tragedy of September 11th was so sudden, so enormous, and so horrendous, both in terms of lives lost and global consequences, that this country and the world went into immediate and prolonged shock.
Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.
I find writing the darker side, writing tragedy, a lot easier than writing happiness. Happiness is just less psychologically compelling, isn't it?
Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up... a lot of people don't have the courage to do it.
It's a tragedy, but with your support and your help we will wage this fight and we're going to win it.
Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.
