Dennis Potter > Quotes

“I also believe in cigarettes, cholesterol, alcohol, carbon monoxide, masturbation, the Arts Council, nuclear weapons, the Daily Telegraph, and not properly labeling fatal poisons, but above all else, most of all, I believe in the one thing that can come out of people's mouths: vomit.”
― Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective

“You just don't know writers. They'll use anything, anybody. They'll eat their young.”
― Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective

“The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they've been in.”
― Dennis Potter

“. . . at this season, the blossom is out in full now, there in the west early. It's a plum tree, it looks like apple blossom but it's white, and looking at it, instead of saying "Oh that's nice blossom" ... last week looking at it through the window when I'm writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. Things are both more trivial than they ever were, and more important than they ever were, and the difference between the trivial and the important doesn't seem to matter. But the nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There's no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance ... not that I'm interested in reassuring people - bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.”
― Dennis Potter, Seeing the Blossom: Two Interviews and a Lecture

“We tend to forget that life can only be defined in the present tense.”
― Dennis Potter

“My only regret is to die four pages too soon.”
― Dennis Potter, Seeing the Blossom: Two Interviews and a Lecture

“...that parish which allows the living to grasp the no longer cold hand of the beloved dead”
― Dennis Potter, Blue Remembered Hills

“I'll have to lift your penis now to grease around it.”
― Dennis Potter, The Singing Detective

“Mi agente no es la criatura más brillante, aunque, como muchos intermediarios en la mayoría de los oficios, suele ser capaz de ocultar este enorme vacío mental con su labia moderna y colocando estratégicamente la última frase o concepto de moda. Posee lo que yo llamo 'mentalidad propia de un alumno de Bellas Artes', que es la variante revenida del verdadero intelectual. Cítale un latinismo por error y se examinará los zapatos o te sonreirá con descaro. Rara vez hallo satisfacción en debatir abstracciones complejas o rompecabezas metafísicos con él. En última instancia, naturalmente, solo le importa su diez por ciento y estoy seguro de que preferiría tener a Patience Strong que a Christopher Logue en sus libros. Pero es ingenuo buscar gran alimento intelectual en un parásito, de la misma manera que lo sería esperar las delicadezas del amor romántico en compañía de una prostituta.”
― Dennis Potter, Hide and Seek

“Nigel Barton:Everyone says 'Up at Oxford'. You come 'down' when you've finished there.

Harry Barton: Well, what's this then? Does bloody Oxford move up and down the bloody map then?”
― Dennis Potter, The Nigel Barton Plays

“Me habría resultado igual de fácil hacer que Miller escribiera sobre Hazlitt o Southey o De Quincey, pues sé mucho sobre ese grupo concreto. Vivieron y trabajaron, en tiempos más cultos, epistolares y ambulantes, cuando la relación entre escritores podía ser tan complicada y febril, tan devoradora, humillante para uno mismo o mutuamente esclarecedora como aquella que existe de forma natural entre amantes consternados y entusiasmados por el delicado equilibro de la dependencia entre ambos. Hoy en día, los escritores se cruzan monosílabos idiotas al teléfono, o se encorvan sobre mesas rematadas con melanina en las cantinas de las fábricas de sueños sosteniendo la cabeza con las manos. Hemos perdido demasiado, y lo hemos perdido para siempre.”
― Dennis Potter, Hide and Seek

“Jesus : Is it—TIME! Is it—me? Me ? (He half pulls himself up. He begins to
babble, almost demented by hunger, thirst and his sense of divinity) Me?
Me? Time has come. Me? It is—It is me, it is me, it is me, it is me...
(He stops. He stands, swaying. Silence. Then he speaks, more slowly and
clearly) He went up into the wilderness. He went up—J went up and
spoke to . . . Make straight the way. Clear a path. The Kingdom of
Heaven is upon—ME? (Pause. Then he screams with the agony of the
thought) ME!? It—is—me-e-e!”
― Dennis Potter, Son of Man: a play

“Good. Not mad. Not a liar. Then what am I? Why do I stop you? Why are you frightened? Why does the blood pound in your head? Why does a hand touch your heart? Why does the lightning flash behind your eyes? Why is your throat so suddenly dry?”
― Dennis Potter, Son of Man: a play

“Debo mostrarme más abierto a las ideas de otros. Sé que no puedo sobrevivir solo. Sé que no regresarás conmigo. Pero si puedo sanar, o ser sanado con la ayuda de otro, entonces es mi deber rendirme a los dolores de la sanación, los azotes del desprecio. Prefiero saborear las cenizas que la sangre.

La contrición y el arrepentimiento no son lo mismo. Quiero salir de uno y entrar en otro. Se trata de un viaje difícil, en especial cuando uno se confunde con la exultación repentina que puede ofrecer un alivio casi mágico, que rápidamente se transforma en depresión y un remordimiento aún peores. Me basta con mirar de nuevo mis palabras para ver los altibajos de mi propia lucha. Al parecer llevo años escribiendo y, sin embargo, no he terminado ni una sola frase.”
― Dennis Potter, Hide and Seek