Noel Coward

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.”

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

“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.”

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

“The higher the building the lower the morals.”

“Work is much more fun than fun.”

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

“There's always something fishy about the French.”

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

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

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

“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.”