Olive Schreiner Quotes

Even a sheet of paper has two sides.

I think the best-written films or television series have a measure of the opposite of what they are.

I like to think my sense of humor is sort of smart and dumb at the same time. I like to work on multiple levels - smart and dumb, funny and sad, profound and mundane, cynical and hopeful.

In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.

In any work you do, you can be profound one minute, and then you be superficial the next, and you can be smart and insightful and then insipid. There can be room for all that.

Duality is not a story. Duality is just a complexity.

In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.

As a general thing, I've always been drawn to characters who appear to be one thing on the surface, but are actually something else underneath.

The reverse side also has a reverse side.

On one level, I am a massive joker and can't take anything seriously, but on the other hand, I'm incredibly serious and a deep thinker, so I have that dichotomy within me.

The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.

Deep down, I happen to be very shallow.

You can go into Mark Twain's material and prove anything you want. He was against war. He was for war. He was against rich people and he was for them. He was a kaleidoscope.

I like characters who have strong facades and then have secrets. They have cracks.

I am quite a cheerful, dark person. On the outside, I'm optimistic but I expect the worst to happen.

The best way to make the most serious point in the world is to be as unserious as possible.

Every side of a coin has another side.

I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them.

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

Maybe I'm like acts of Congress or your favorite Chinese restaurant - you don't really want to know what's going on behind the door. I'm a real study in contrast, I expect, looking from without. But it adds up to what you get on stage.

The most serious film can be the most fun. The one that's supposed to be fun can be the most serious.

I have an incredibly dark, mysterious, witchy side and another side that's very bubbly and cheerleader-esque.

My poems... the ones that start out as jokes become these big ponderous things and the ones that start out ponderous devolve into jokes.

Politics is much too serious to be taken too seriously; equally, there are many aspects of it so laughable as to be lamentable.

Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.