16 Quotes by Brian Friel

Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement - as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary...

...that it is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception - a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to... inevitabilities.

It is not the literal past, the 'facts' of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

No matter how long the sun may linger on his long and weary journey, at length evening comes with its sacred song.

To remember everything is a form of madness.

Confusion is not an ignoble condition.

It is not the literal past, the ‘facts’ of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language.

Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception – a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our only method of replying to... inevitabilities.