Comedy in a Minor Key Quotes

“Love, beauty, dignity: all that was only put on, so that whoever approached the glowing embers in reverence would not singe his grasping hands and thirsting lips. But wherever violence and annihilation tore away the protective covering, the undaunted heart was thrown into turmoil and could not rest until new costumes had formed, new threads has been spun, to make and raise up what was shameful and venerable.”
― Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key

“I am always surprised how few grown men and women have actually really seen a dead body. That is, in normal times. A lot of people see one for the first time in their thirties. It’s strange. Everyone has a lot more to do with love, earlier and more often, of course. But they should have to see a dead body at least once a week. Then everyone would have a better sense of equilibrium, and lots of fears and anxieties would just disappear.”
― Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key

“People veil a body in fabric and clothing so that the blaze of its nakedness does not blind too deeply the eyes that see it, people veil life itself with precious garments, behind which, as under ashes, the double-tongued fire of creation smoulders.”
― Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key

“She had seen fear: the terrible helpless fear that rises up out of sadness and despair and is no longer attached to anything— the helpless fear that is tied only to nothingness. Not fear or anxiety or despair about a person or a situation, nothing, nothing, only the exposure, the vulnerability, being cast loose from all certainties, from all dignity and all love”
― Hans Keilson, Comedy in a Minor Key