Eugene O'Neill Quotes

Quotes about:

• There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Time, Memories, Future

  Bhagwat S. Goyal, Eugene O'Neill (1975). “The Strategy of Survival: Human Significance of O'Neill's Plays”, Ghaziabad : Vimal Prakashan

  51 Copy quote

• God gave us mouths that close and ears that don't... that should tell us something.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Ears, Mouths, Should

  70 Copy quote

• We need above all to learn again to believe in the possibility of nobility of spirit in ourselves.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Believe, Needs, Spirit

  Eugene O'Neill (1988). “Complete Plays: 1932-1943”

  52 Copy quote

• Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The Grace of God is glue.

  Eugene O'Neill

  God, Faith, Men

  Eugene O'Neill (1926). “The great god Brown: The fountain, The moon of the Caribbees, and other plays”

  94 Copy quote

• None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before you realize it, and once they’re done they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Self, Forever, Experience

  Travis Bogard, Eugene O'Neill (1988). “Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill”, p.434, Oxford University Press on Demand

  50 Copy quote

• We fought so long against small things that we became small ourselves.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Long, Small Things

  30 Copy quote

• We talk about the American Dream, and want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that Dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think that the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Dream, Thinking, United States

  Eugene O'Neill, Mark W. Estrin (1990). “Conversations with Eugene O'Neill”, p.230, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  18 Copy quote

• Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Life, Wall, Mirrors

  "Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill".

  38 Copy quote

• If a person is to get the meaning of life he must learn to like the facts about himself -- ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity -- before he can learn the truth behind the facts. And the truth is never ugly.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Life, Vanity, Ugly

  Eugene O'Neill, Mark W. Estrin (1990). “Conversations with Eugene O'Neill”, p.37, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• We are where centuries only count as seconds, and after a thousand lives, our eyes begin to open.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Karma, Eye, Century

  Eugene O'Neill (1951). “Plays: "Anna Christie." Beyond the horizon. The Emperor Jones. The hairy ape. The great god Brown. The straw. Dynamo. Days without end. The iceman cometh”

  61 Copy quote

• Writing is my vacation from living.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Writing, Vacation

  Bhagwat S. Goyal, Eugene O'Neill (1975). “The Strategy of Survival: Human Significance of O'Neill's Plays”, Ghaziabad : Vimal Prakashan

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• One last word of farewell, dear master and mistress. Whenever you visit my grave, say to yourselves with regret but also happiness in your hearts at the remembrance of my long happy life with you: "Here lies one who loves us and whom we loved." No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Dog, Regret, Lying

  Eugene O'Neill, Travis Bogard (1988). “The Unknown O'Neill: Unpublished Or Unfamiliar Writings of Eugene O'Neill”, p.434, Yale University Press

  49 Copy quote

• Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?

  Eugene O'Neill

  Song, Laughter, Love Life

  Travis Bogard, Eugene O'Neill (1988). “Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill”, p.271, Oxford University Press on Demand

  55 Copy quote

• Suppose I was to tell you that it's just beauty that's calling me, the beauty of the far off and unknown, the mystery and spell which lures me, the need of freedom of great wide spaces, the joy of wandering on and on----in quest of the secret which is hidden over there----beyond the horizon?

  Eugene O'Neill

  Space, Joy, Secret

  Eugene O'Neill (1996). “Beyond the Horizon”, p.7, Courier Corporation

  36 Copy quote

• Life is perhaps best regarded as a bad dream between two awakenings.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Life, Dream, Two

  Margaret Loftus Ranald, Eugene O'Neill (1984). “The Eugene O'Neill Companion”, Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press

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• When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity - but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Birthday, Women, Thinking

  29 Copy quote

• Dogs...do not ruin their sleep worrying about how to keep the objects they have, and to obtain the objects they have not. There is nothing of value they have to bequeath except their love and their faith.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Dog, Sleep, Grieving

  28 Copy quote

• You said they had found the secret of happiness because they had never heard that love can be a sin.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Secret, Sin, Found

  Eugene O'Neill (2016). “Mourning Becomes Electra”, p.22, Jester House Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• I am so far from being a pessimist...on the contrary, in spite of my scars, I am tickled to death at life.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Optimistic, Optimism, Scar

  Bhagwat S. Goyal, Eugene O'Neill (1975). “The Strategy of Survival: Human Significance of O'Neill's Plays”, Ghaziabad : Vimal Prakashan

  6 Copy quote

• The only living life is in the past and future - the present is an interlude - strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness that we are living.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Live Life, Past, Bears

  'Strange Interlude' (1928) pt. 2, act 8

  27 Copy quote

• It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a seagull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must be a little in love with death!

  Eugene O'Neill

  Life, Mistake, Home

  Eugene O'Neill, Harold Bloom (2009). “Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night”, p.79, Infobase Publishing

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• It's a great game - the pursuit of happiness.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Games, Pursuit

  Eugene O'Neill (1988). “Complete Plays: 1932-1943”

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• The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future too.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Past, Long Day, Past Present

  Eugene O'Neill (1988). “More Stately Mansions”, p.179, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• While you are still beautiful and life still woos, it is such a fine gesture of disdainful pride to jilt it.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Beautiful, Pride, Vanity

  13 Copy quote

• Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see—and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!

  Eugene O'Neill

  Fall, Fog, Hands

  Eugene O'Neill, Harold Bloom (2009). “Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night”, p.79, Infobase Publishing

  3 Copy quote

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