"Everything we do has consequences"
About this Quote
A line this spare can sound like a motivational poster, but in Dennis Potter's hands it lands more like a verdict. "Everything we do has consequences" is the kind of plainspoken moral arithmetic his drama keeps forcing on characters who would rather treat life as improv: say the thing, take the shortcut, nurse the grudge, then act surprised when the bill arrives.
Potter wrote from inside consequence. His psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis were not just biographical facts; they were engines of viewpoint, sharpening his suspicion of easy escape hatches and "it doesn't matter" attitudes. That lived constraint feeds the line's implied rebuttal: you don't get to opt out. Not emotionally, not politically, not sexually, not socially. The smallest choices reverberate, especially the ones society encourages you to call private.
The subtext is also a critique of modern moral outsourcing. Potter's work often toys with fantasy, nostalgia, and pop culture as anesthetics, not simple pleasures. The sentence warns against treating images and stories as consequence-free zones. Desire has downstream effects. Performance does. Silence does. Even the refusal to act is an action with its own footprint.
As a dramatist, Potter knows "consequences" isn't abstract philosophy; it's structure. It's how a plot proves what a character believes. The line's intent, then, is not to moralize but to strip away alibis. In a Potter world, accountability isn't a theme stapled on at the end. It's the basic physics of being alive.
Potter wrote from inside consequence. His psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis were not just biographical facts; they were engines of viewpoint, sharpening his suspicion of easy escape hatches and "it doesn't matter" attitudes. That lived constraint feeds the line's implied rebuttal: you don't get to opt out. Not emotionally, not politically, not sexually, not socially. The smallest choices reverberate, especially the ones society encourages you to call private.
The subtext is also a critique of modern moral outsourcing. Potter's work often toys with fantasy, nostalgia, and pop culture as anesthetics, not simple pleasures. The sentence warns against treating images and stories as consequence-free zones. Desire has downstream effects. Performance does. Silence does. Even the refusal to act is an action with its own footprint.
As a dramatist, Potter knows "consequences" isn't abstract philosophy; it's structure. It's how a plot proves what a character believes. The line's intent, then, is not to moralize but to strip away alibis. In a Potter world, accountability isn't a theme stapled on at the end. It's the basic physics of being alive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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