Noël Coward Quotes

95 Sourced Quotes

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
It would be nice if sometimes the kind things I say were considered worthy of quotation. It isn't difficult, you know, to be witty or amusing when one has something to say that is destructive, but damned hard to be clever and quotable when you are singing someone's praises.

Noël Coward
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.

Noël Coward
Poor little rich girl
You're a bewitched girl,
Better beware!

Noël Coward
To Gertrude Lawrence, the day after her wedding:
Dear Mrs A.,
Hooray, hooray,
At last you are deflowered.
On this as every other day
I love you—Noel Coward.

Noël Coward
The stately homes of England we proudly represent,
We only keep them up for Americans to rent.
Tho' the pipes that supply the bathroom burst
And the lavat'ry makes you fear the worst
It was used by Charles the First (quite informally),
And later by George the Fourth on a journey north,
The state apartments keep their historical reknown,
It's wiser not to sleep there in case they tumble down;
But still if they ever catch on fire
Which with any luck they might,
We'll fight for the stately homes of England.

Noël Coward