Noel Coward quotes

[On the phone] "My dear Jim's dead...No dear, he jumped off Waterloo Bridge - Yes, the one next to Charing Cross - No, no, no that's Blackfriars."

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.

Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to,
The Chinese wouldn't dare to,
The Hindus and Argentines
Sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen
Detest a
Siesta.

Morris: I'll never speak to you again until the day I die!
Gary: Well, we can have a nice little chat then, can't we?

In Rangoon
The heat of noon
Is just what the natives shun,
They put their Scotch
Or Rye down
And lie down.

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

It seems such a shame
When the English claim
The Earth,
That they give rise
To such hilarity
And mirth.

Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington
Don’t put your daughter on the stage
The profession is overcrowded
And the struggle’s pretty tough
And admitting the fact she’s burning to act
That isn’t quite enough
She’s a big girl and though her teeth are fairly good
She’s not the type I ever would be eager to engage
I repeat, Mrs. Worthington, sweet Mrs. Worthington
Don’t put your daughter on the stage.

In Bengal,
To move at all
Is seldom if ever done.

Proceeding on the assumption that the reader of this preface is interested in the development of my musical talent, I will try to explain, as concisely as I can, how, in this respect, my personal wheels go round. To begin with, I have only had two music lessons in my life. These were the first steps of what was to have been a full course at the Guildhall School of Music, and they faltered and stopped when I was told by my instructor that I could not use consecutive fifths. He went on to explain that a gentleman called Ebenezer Prout had announced many years ago that consecutive fifths were wrong and must in no circumstances be employed. At that time Ebenezer Prout was merely a name to me (as a matter of fact he still is, and a very funny one at that) and I was unimpressed by his Victorian dicta. I argued back that Debussy and Ravel had used consecutive fifths like mad. My instructor waved aside this triviality with a pudgy hand, and I left his presence forever with the parting shot that what was good enough for Debussy and Ravel was good enough for me. This outburst of rugged individualism deprived me of much valuable knowledge, and I have never deeply regretted it for a moment.

Elyot: Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.

Wrongly attributed to Noel Coward is a quotation about the Queen of Tonga. He is alleged to have been sitting under cover from the heavy rain with Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent at the Coronation in London in 1953. Opposite them was the vast Queen Salote of Tonga. Princess Marina is supposed to have asked "Noel, who is that little man sheltering under Queen Salote's umbrella?" Coward is said to have peered through the rain and said "Oh, her lunch, my dear." In a later interview with Walter Harris, Coward revealed it had been said by someone at White's Club and was immediately attributed to Coward. "It was very flattering of course, except that I had intended to visit Tonga the following winter, and after that of course it was quite impossible."

In Hong Kong
They strike a gong
And fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand
Each inmate
Who's in late.

Charles: Anything interesting in The Times?
Ruth: Don't be silly, Charles.

The natives grieve
When the white men leave
Their huts.
Because they're obviously,
Definitely
Nuts.

In tropical climes
There are certain times
Of day
When all the citizens retire
To take their clothes off and perspire.
It's one of those rules
That the greatest fools
Obey,
Because the sun is far too sultry
And one must avoid its ultry-
Vi'let ray.

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.

Gary: You ought never to have joined the Athenaeum Club, Henry: it was disastrous.
Henry: I really don’t see why.
Gary: It’s made you pompous.
Henry: It can’t have. I’ve always been too frightened to go into it.

So if I could employ
A little magic that will finally destroy
This dream that pains me and enchains me
But I can't because I'm mad...
I'm mad about the boy

Television is for appearing on, not looking at.