Author: Noel Coward Page 2

I’d wring your neck… if you had one.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Appearance Body Insults

For God's sake, go and tell that young man to take that Rockingham tea service out of his tights.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Entertainment Insults

Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Acting Entertainment Reviews/Criticism Wordplay

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

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Success

Like watching an affair between a mad rocking-horse and a rawhide suitcase.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Reviews/Criticism

If they'd stuffed the child's head up the horse's arse, they would have solved two problems at once.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Squash – that’s not exercise, it’s flagellation.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Sports

Having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Books Communication Reading/Writing Sex

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

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Acting Communication Entertainment Reviews/Criticism

He has his head in the clouds and his feet in the box office.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Communication Insults Reviews/Criticism

Actress Claudette Colbert: I knew these lines backwards last night.

Coward: And that’s just the way you’re saying them this morning.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Acting Communication Entertainment Speech

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.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Entertainment Music Reviews/Criticism

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

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Success

Do I believe in God? … Let’s say we have a working relationship.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Beliefs God

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

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Insults

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

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Failure

The audience would have booed and hissed after the first act, but you can't do that and yawn at the same time.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Reviews/Criticism

Never trust a man with short legs… his brain's too near his bottom.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Appearance Body Intelligence

He's completely unspoiled by failure.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Failure Insults

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.

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Acting People Reviews/Criticism

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

(1899 – 1973) English playwright, actor, composer, director & songwriter
Beliefs Insults