Noël Coward Quotes

95 Sourced Quotes

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.

Noël Coward
I have no more faith in men of science being infallible than I have in men of God being infallible, principally on account of them being men.

Noël Coward
Sunburn is very becoming—but only when it is even—one must be careful not to look like a mixed grill.

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

Noël Coward
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?

Noël Coward
On being asked what he was like as a child:
When paid constant attention, extremely lovable. When not, a pig.

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

Noël Coward
Have moved hotel excelsior coughing myself into a firenze.
Telegram from Florence

Noël Coward
Have you had any word
Of that bloke in the 'Third',
Was it Southerby, Sedgwick or Sim?
They had him thrown out of the club in Bombay
For, apart from his mess bills exceeding his pay,
He took to pig-sticking in quite the wrong way.
I wonder what happened to him!

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

Noël Coward
Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington,
Don't put your daughter on the stage.
Though they said at the school of acting
She was lovely as Peer Gynt,
I'm afraid on the whole
An ingénue role
Would emphasize her squint.

Noël Coward
In a jungle town
Where the sun beats down
To the rage of man and beast,
The English garb
Of the English sahib
Merely gets a bit more creased.
In Bangkok
At twelve'o'clock
They foam at the mouth and run,
But mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.

Noël Coward
The world has treated me very well, but then I haven't treated it so badly either.

Noël Coward
Poor Uncle Harry
Having become a missionary
Found the natives' morals rather crude.
He and Aunt Mary
Quickly imposed an arbitrary
Ban upon them shopping in the nude…
Uncle Harry's not a missionary now.

Noël Coward
Dance, dance, dance, little lady!
Leave tomorrow behind.

Noël Coward
Why do the wrong people travel, travel, travel,
When the right people stay back home?

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

Noël Coward
Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When our Victory is ultimately won.
It was just those nasty Nazis who persuaded them to fight
And their Beethoven and Bach are really far worse than their bite,

Noël Coward
The Stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand,
To prove the upper classes
Have still the upper hand.

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

Noël Coward
Amanda: Whose yacht is that?
Elyot: The Duke of Westminster's I expect. It always is.
Amanda: I wish I were on it.
Elyot: I wish you were too.
Amanda: There's no need to be nasty.
Elyot: Yes, there is every need. I've never in my life felt a greater urge to be nasty.

Noël Coward
Three juvenile delinquents,
Juvenile delinquents,
Happy as can be—we
Waste no time
On the wherefores and whys of it;
We like crime
And that's about the size of it.

Noël Coward
I'll see you again,
Whenever spring breaks through again.

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

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

Noël Coward
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.

Noël Coward
Mad about the boy
I know it's stupid to be mad about the boy
I'm so ashamed of it but must admit the sleepless nights I've had
About the boy

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

Noël Coward
To an actress who kept saying 'On a very clear day' instead of 'On a clear day':
No, no, Edith. The line is, 'You can see as far as Marlow on a clear day.' On a very clear day you can see Marlow and Beaumont and Fletcher.

Noël Coward
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.

Noël Coward