tragedies quotes

Let us have no ranting tragedies. Too many charactersNot a tolerable woman's part in the play.

-Jane Austen
  Mansfield Park, ch.14.

Of course in nature the only ending is death, but death hardly ever happens when people are at their best. That is why we like tragedies. They show men energetically with their wits about them and deserving to do it.

- AlasdairJames Gray
Lanark, bk.1, interlude.