Michael Frayn
Playwright
1933-09-08
Books by Michael Frayn
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Quotes by Michael Frayn
-
Failure, it occurred to him, was the secular equivalent of sin. Modern secular man was born into a world whose moral framework was composed not of laws and duties, but of tests and comparisons. There were no absolute outside standards, so standards had to generate themselves from within, relativistically. One's natural sense of inadequacy could be kept at bay only pious acts of repeated successfulness. And failure was more terrifying than sin. Sin could be repented of by an act of volition; failure could not be disposed of so easily.
Read quote -
Odd, though, all these dealings of mine with myself. First I've agreed a principle with myself, now I'm making out a case to myself, and debating my own feelings and intentions with myself. Who is this self, this phantom internal partner, with whom I'm entering into all these arrangements? (I ask myself.)
Read quote -
Odd, though, all these dealings of mine with myself. First I've agreed a principle withmyself, now I'm making out a case to myself, and debating my own feelings andintentions with myself. Who is this self, this phantom internal partner, with whom I'mentering into all these arrangements? (I ask myself.)
Read quote -
Odd, though, all these dealings of mine with myself. First I've agreed a principle withmyself, now I'm making out a case to myself, and debating my own feelings andintentions with myself. Who is this self, this phantom internal partner, with whom I'mentering into all these arrangements? (I ask myself.)
Read quote -
Failure, it occurred to him, was the secular equivalent of sin. Modern secular man was born into a world whose moral framework was composed not of laws and duties, but of tests and comparisons. There were no absolute outside standards, so standards had to generate themselves from within, relativistically. One's natural sense of inadequacy could be kept at bay only pious acts of repeated successfulness. And failure was more terrifying than sin. Sin could be repented of by an act of volition; failure could not be disposed of so easily.
Read quote -
Odd, though, all these dealings of mine with myself. First I've agreed a principle with myself, now I'm making out a case to myself, and debating my own feelings and intentions with myself. Who is this self, this phantom internal partner, with whom I'm entering into all these arrangements? (I ask myself.)
Read quote -
It's funny - there's nothing that stops you laughing like the sight of other people laughing about something else.
Read quote -
When anyone says they often think something, it means they've just thought of it now.
Read quote