Laughter is wine for the soul - laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness - the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.
Sean O'CaseyRead
The drama's altar isn't on the stage: it is candle-sticked and flowered in the box office. There is the gold, though there be no frankincense or myrrh; and the gospel for the day always The Play will Run for a Year. The Dove of Inspiration, of the desire for inspiration, has flown away from it; and on it's roof, now, the commonplace crow caws candidly.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Artistic success often relies more on commercial success than on creative inspiration.
In this quote, Sean O'Casey emphasizes that the true heart of theatrical success isn't found in the artistry presented on stage, but rather in the financial returns at the box office. He suggests that the drive for creativity is often overshadowed by the commercial aspects of theater, where the allure of profit can sometimes drown out genuine inspiration, leaving behind a mundane reality instead of the profound art that was intended.
Themes
TheaterArtInspirationSuccessCommerce
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the challenges of artistic integrity in commercial theater.
More from Sean O'Casey
All quotes →If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they'd realize that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.
Sean O'CaseyRead
Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, great as each may be, their highest comfort given to the sorrowful is a cordial introduction into another's woe. Sorrow's the great community in which all men born of woman are members at one time or another.
Sean O'CaseyRead
Wealth often takes away chances from men as well as poverty. There is none to tell the rich to go on striving, for a rich man makes the law that hallows and hollows his own life.
Sean O'CaseyRead
There's nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.
Sean O'CaseyRead
Politics - I don't know why, but they seem to have a tendency to separate us, to keep us from one another, while nature is always and ever making efforts to bring us together.
Sean O'CaseyRead
Similar quotes
Tell me a story._x000D_ In this century, and moment, of mania,_x000D_ Tell me a story._x000D_ Make it a story of great distances, and starlight._x000D_ The name of the story will be Time,_x000D_ But you must not pronounce its name._x000D_ Tell me a story of deep delight.
Robert Penn WarrenRead
When it all comes together, a creative life has the nourishing power we normally associate with food, love and faith.
Twyla TharpRead
The only thing I really wanted was the freedom to be able to get what I want on film. I’ve dealt with the MPAA since 1973, so I know how to renegotiate and rework.
Martin ScorseseRead
Long looking at paintings is equivalent to being dropped into a foreign city, where gradually, out of desire and despair, a few key words, then a little syntax make a clearing in the silence. Art... is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar... We have to recognize that the language of art, all art, is not our mother-tongue.
Jeanette WintersonRead
I can't be alone among fiction writers in regarding the world, so much weirder than anything we could make up, as beating us at our own game or in racking my brains over what could possibly constitute a contribution when novels pale before the newspaper.
Lionel ShriverRead
You like it, that's all, whether it's a landscape or abstract. You like it. It hits you. You don't have to read it. The work of art-sculpture or painting-forces your eye.
Clement GreenbergRead