Noel Coward Quotations

Wit ought to be a glorious treat like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade.

I've sometimes thought of marrying - and then I've thought again.

It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

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

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

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

I have always paid income tax. I object only when it reaches a stage when I am threatened with having nothing left for my old age - which is due to start next Tuesday or Wednesday.

I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.

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

If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday.

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

Mona Lisa looks as if she has just been sick, or is about to be.

Success took me to her bosom like a maternal boa constrictor.

The higher the building the lower the morals.

Let's drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of unbelievable Hell, and let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.

We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one, have we?

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

I'm not a heavy drinker, I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.

That strange feeling we had in the war. Have you found anything in your lives since to equal it in strength? A sort of splendid carelessness it was, holding us together.

Just say the lines and don't trip over the furniture.

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

People are wrong when they say opera is not what it used to be. It is what it used to be. That is what's wrong with it.

Learn the lines and don't bump into the furniture.

I believe that since my life began / The most I've had is just / A talent to amuse.

Whatever crimes the Proletariat commits / It can't be beastly to the Children of the Ritz.

Time has convinced me of one thing: Television is for appearing on - not for looking at

There are bad times just around the corner,/ We can all look forward to despair, / It's as clear as crystal / From Bridlington to Bristol / That we can't save democracy / And we don't much care.

We're Regency Rakes / And each of us makes / A personal issue / Of adipose tissue.

There's sand in the porridge and sand in the bed, / And if this is pleasure we'd rather be dead.

I've over-educated myself in all the things I shouldn't have known at all

Put somebody you love in the audience in your mind and work for them,

Dance, dance, dance little lady, / Leave tomorrow behind.

Sunburn is very becoming, but only when it is even - one must be careful not to look like a mixed grill

It was not Cafe Society, it was Nescafe Society.

I refuse to endure months of expensive humiliation only to be told that at the age of four I was in love with my rocking horse

But it must be somebody who loves you. The best was my father, or Harry.

He sleeps and sleeps, and the days go by, ... I love him dearly and for ever, but this lack of drive in any direction is a bad augury for the future. I am willing and happy to look after him for the rest of my life, but he must do something. If only he would take up some occupation and stick to it. I know that he is unhappy inside but, alas, with his natural resilience these moments of self-revelation dissipate and on go the years, and he will be an elderly man who has achieved nothing at all.

I am not a heavy drinker. I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be.

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

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

He must have been an incredibly good shot.

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.

Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is.

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.

It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinee in Hull - it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction. Come to think of it, I never did play to a good matinee in Hull . . .

Marriage is the aftermath of love.

Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.

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

Running is the classical road to self-consciousn ess, self-awareness and self-reliance. Independence is the outstanding characteristic of a runner. He learns the harsh reality of his physical and spiritual limitations when he runs. He learns that personal commitment, sacrifice and determination are his only means to betterment. Runners get promoted only through self-conquest.

Exercise is the most awful illusion. The secret is a lot of aspirin and marrons glaces.

Squash - that's not exercise, it's flagellation.

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

Passion in a dromedary doesn't go so deep; a camel when it's mating never sobs itself to sleep.

Wit is like caviar - it should be served in small portions and not spread about like marmalade.

Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun.

There's always something fishy about the French.

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.

An infant prodigy of nine is shoved upon the stage in white. She starts off in a dismal whine about a dark and stormy night, a burglar, whose heart is true, despite his wicked-looking face, who puts the little child in doom, to save her mamma's jewel case. This may bring tears to every eye; it does not set my heart on fire. I'd like to stand serenely by and watch that horrid child expire.

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

She had much in common with Hitler, only no mustache.

I never cared who scored the goal, or which side won the silver cup. I never learned to bat or bowl; but I heard the curtain going up.

Many years ago I remember a famous actress explaining to me with perfect seriousness that before making an entrance she always stood aside to allow God to go on first. I can also remember that on that particular occasion He gave a singularly uninspired performance.

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.

Goodnight my darlings, I'll see you tomorrow.

The air is like a draught of wine. The undertaker cleans his sign, The Hull express goes off the line, When it's raspberry time in Runcorn.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but without a little familiarity it's impossible to breed anything.

Never trust a man with short legs. His brains are too near his bottom.

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

My philosophy is as simple as ever - smoking, drinking, moderate sexual intercourse on a diminishing scale, reading and writing (not arithmetic). I have a selfish absorption in the well-being and achievement of Noel Coward.

Dear 338171 (May I call you 338?)

Fifty-four years of love and tenderness and crossness and devotion and unswerving loyalty. Without her I could have achieved a quarter of what I have achieved, not only in terms of success and career, but in terms of personal happiness.

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.

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

A bloody good thing, but too late.

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

For gin, in cruel sober truth, supplies the fuel for flaming youth.

Bed is the perfect climate.

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.

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

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

How foolish to think that one can ever slam the door in the face of age. Much wiser to be polite and gracious and ask him to lunch in advance.

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

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

I don't think pornography is harmful, but it is terribly, terribly boring.

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

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

Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon The author of Lear remains unshaken Willie Herbert or Mary Fitton What does it matter? The Sonnets were written.

If by any chance a playwright wishes to express a political opinion or a moral opinion or a philosophy, he must be a good enough craftsman to do it with so much spice of entertainment in it that the public get the message without being aware of it.

Everybody worships me, it's nauseating.

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.

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

It's no good pacing up and down. It won't make the plane arrive any faster. Just sit down and accept that we're delayed. You're just making a fool of yourself.

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

Everybody was up to something, especially, of course, those who were up to nothing.

Here ends the story of a ship, but there will always be other ships, for we are an island race. Through all our centuries, the sea has ruled our destiny. There will always be other ships and men to sail in them. It is these men, in peace or war, to whom we owe so much. Above all victories, beyond all loss, in spite of changing values in a changing world, they give to us, their countrymen, eternal and indomitable pride.

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.

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

It's never too early for a cocktail.

The theatre should be treated with respect. The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda.