Famous quotes containing the word tragic:
“There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The tragic hero prefers death to prudence. The comedian prefers playing tricks to winning. Only the villain really plays to win.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Whereas the comic confronts simply logical contradictions, the tragic confronts a moral predicament. Not minor matters of true and false but crucial questions of right and wrong, good and evil face the tragic character in a tragic situation.”
—Marie Collins Swabey. Comic Laughter, ch. 7, Yale University Press (1961)