26 quotes
Having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.
I love criticism as long as it is unqualified praise.
Television is for appearing on, not looking at.
Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.
Private Lives (1930)
People are wrong when they say that the opera isn't what it used to be. It is what it used to be — that's what's wrong with it!
Design for Living (1932)
Your motivation is your pay packet on Friday. Now get on with it.
I don't know what London's coming to—the higher the buildings the lower the morals.
Poor little rich girl
You're a bewitched girl,
Better beware!
Poor Little Rich Girl (1925)
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 about the boy,
It's pretty funny but I'm mad about the boy.
He has a gay appeal
That makes me feel
There may be something sad about the boy.
Mad about the Boy (1932)
Cockney feet
Mark the beat of history
Every street
Pins a memory down.
Nothing ever can quite replace
The grace of London Town.
London Pride (1941)
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.
Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon
The author of Lear remains unshaken
Willie Herbert or Mary Fitton
What does it matter? The Sonnets were written.
He loved me true did Harry-boy and I loved him true, and if the happiness we gave each other was wicked and wrong in the eyes of the Law and the Church and God Almighty, then the Law and the Church and God Almighty can go dig a hole and fall down it.
Me and the Girls (1964)
In Hong Kong
They strike a gong
And fire off a noonday gun
To reprimand
Each inmate
Who's in late.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)
It seems such a shame
When the English claim
The Earth,
That they give rise
To such hilarity
And mirth.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)
It's such a surprise
For Eastern eyes
To see,
That though the English are effete,
They're quite impervious to heat.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)
In Bengal,
To move at all
Is seldom if ever done.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen (1930)
Lord knows I'm not a fool girl
I really shouldn't care
Lord knows I'm not a school girl
In the flurry of her first affair.
Mad About the Boy (1932)
The actual facts are so simple. I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me. There now! Start to unravel from there.
Design for Living (1932)