Noel Coward Quotes

Criticism and Bolshevism have one thing in common. They both seek to pull down that which they could never build.

She stopped the show - but then the show wasn't traveling very fast.

How about slipping out of those wet things and into a dry Martini?

I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.

To know you are among people whom you love, and who love you – that has made all the successes wonderful, much more wonderful than they'd have been anyway.

You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don't bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday.

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun; The Japanese don't care to, the Chinese wouldn't dare to; Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one, But Englishmen detest a siesta.

I don't believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.

Your motivation is your pay packet on Friday. Now get on with it.

Star quality: I don't know what it is, but I've got it.

To take a gloomy view of life is not part of my philosophy; to laugh at the idiocies of my fellow creatures is. However, at this particular moment I cannot find so much to laugh at as I would like.

My life really has been one long extravaganza.

I can take any amount of criticism, as long as it is unqualified praise.

I write at high speed because boredom is bad for my health.

My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that my mind has not wandered enough.

I don't much care for Hollywood, I'd rather have a nice cup of cocoa.

Good heavens, television is something you appear on; you don't watch.

Someday I suspect, when Jesus has definitely got me for a sunbeam, my works may be adequately assessed.

I see her as one great stampede of lips directed at the nearest derriere.

I'll go through life either first class or third, but never in second.

Bed is the perfect climate.

As one gets older, one discovers everything is going to be exactly the same with different hats on.

If he (Peter O'Toole) had been any prettier it would have been Florence of Arabia.

Goodnight, my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow.

I can't sing, but I know how to, which is quite different.

Marriage is the aftermath of love.

I'm over-educated in the things I shouldn't have known at all.

The Stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand, To prove the Upper Classes, Have still the Upper Hand.

Hollywood is a place where some people lie on the beach and look up at the stars, whereas other people lie on the stars and look down at the beach.

Madame Bovary is the sexiest book imaginable. The woman's virtually a nyphomaniac but you won't find a vulgar word in the entire thing.

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be. You can't be eight times a week without going stark staring mad. You've got to be in control.

AMANDA: I think very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives.

I'm an enormously talented man, and there's no use pretending that I'm not.

Dear 338171 (May I call you 338?)

You kissed me because you were awfully nice and I was awfully nice and we both liked kissing very much. It was inevitable.

I'll go and see anything so long as it amuses me, or moves me. If it doesn't do either I want to go home.

There isn't a particle of you that I don't know, remember, and want.

Labour leaders lead us all, though we know they bleed us all. Cheer our new Decline and Fall, Gibbon might have dreamed it all.

I also avoid green vegetables. They're grossly overrated.

The pleasures that once were heaven look silly at sixty-seven.

Las Vegas: It was not cafe society, it was Nescafe society

I want a horse and plough, Chickens too, Just one cow, With a wistful moo.

I have always been very fond of them (drama critics) . . . I think it is so frightfully clever of them to go night after night to the theatre and know so little about it.

He must have been an incredibly good shot.

Though the fact that they have to be rebuilt And frequently mortgaged to the hilt Is inclined to take the gilt Off the gingerbread, And certainly damps the fun Of the eldest son.

Comedies of manners swiftly become obsolete when there are no longer any manners.

Everybody worships me, it's nauseating.

You always ought to have tom cats arranged, you know - it makes 'em more companionable.

Never mind, dear, we're all made the same, though some more than others.

It's such a surprise for the Eastern eyes to see, That though the English are effete They're quite impervious to heat.