Top 100 Noël Coward Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun; The Japanese don’t care to, the Chinese wouldn’t dare to; Hindus and Argentines sleep firmly from twelve to one, But Englishmen detest a siesta.”

— Noël Coward

52. “The theatre should be treated with respect. The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda.”

— Noël Coward

53. “Just say the lines and don’t trip over the furniture.”

— Noël Coward

54. “Sunburn is very becoming – but only when it is even – one must be careful not to look like a mixed grill.”

— Noël Coward

55. “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.”

— Noël Coward

56. “AMANDA: I think very few people are completely normal really, deep down in their private lives.”

— Noël Coward

57. “Having to read footnotes resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.”

— Noël Coward

58. “It’s like this, dear boy, the one in front is blind and the kind one behind is pushing him.”

— Noël Coward

59. “Fifty-four years of love and tenderness and crossness and devotion and unswerving loyalty. Without her I could have achieved a quarter of what I have achieved, not only in terms of success and career, but in terms of personal happiness.”

— Noël Coward

60. “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.”

— Noël Coward

61. “You ask my advice about acting? Speak clearly, don’t bump into the furniture and if you must have motivation, think of your pay packet on Friday.”

— Noël Coward

62. “How about slipping out of those wet things and into a dry Martini?”

— Noël Coward

63. “There’s always something fishy about the French.”

— Noël Coward

64. “Consider the public. Never fear it nor despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry, but above all never, never, never bore the living hell out of it.”

— Noël Coward

65. “Wouldn’t it be dreadful to live in a country where they didn’t have tea?”

— Noël Coward

66. “Wit is like caviar – it should be served in small portions and not spread about like marmalade.”

— Noël Coward

67. “Your motivation is your pay packet on Friday. Now get on with it.”

— Noël Coward

68. “I do not intend to let myself down more than I can possibly help, and I find that the fewer illusions I have about myself or the world around me, the better company I am for myself.”

— Noël Coward

69. “There are dark times just around the corner. There are dark clouds travelling through the sky. And it’s no good whining about a silver lining. For we know from experience they won’t roll by.”

— Noël Coward

70. “I’ll go through life either first class or third, but never in second.”

— Noël Coward

71. “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.”

— Noël Coward

72. “He must have been an incredibly good shot.”

— Noël Coward

73. “I don’t believe in astrology. The only stars I can blame for my failures are those that walk about the stage.”

— Noël Coward

74. “Entering an white tie and tails party wearing an ordinary suit, he announced,“Please, I don’t want anyone to apologize for over dressing.”

— Noël Coward

75. “It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of, but my own.”

— Noël Coward

76. “Let’s drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of unbelievable Hell, and let’s drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.”

— Noël Coward

77. “I don’t much care for Hollywood, I’d rather have a nice cup of cocoa.”

— Noël Coward

78. “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

79. “I see her as one great stampede of lips directed at the nearest derriere.”

— Noël Coward

80. “My life really has been one long extravaganza.”

— Noël Coward

81. “Passion in a dromedary doesn’t go so deep; a camel when it’s mating never sobs itself to sleep.”

— Noël Coward

82. “I don’t think pornography is harmful, but it is terribly, terribly boring.”

— Noël Coward

83. “How foolish to think that one can ever slam the door in the face of age. Much wiser to be polite and gracious and ask him to lunch in advance.”

— Noël Coward

84. “Television is for appearing on, not looking at.”

— Noël Coward

85. “Never mind, dear, we’re all made the same, though some more than others.”

— Noël Coward

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

— Noël Coward

87. “A bloody good thing, but too late.”

— Noël Coward

88. “I’ve sometimes thought of marrying – and then I’ve thought again.”

— Noël Coward

89. “Everybody worships me, it’s nauseating.”

— Noël Coward

90. “To take a gloomy view of life is not part of my philosophy; to laugh at the idiocies of my fellow creatures is. However, at this particular moment I cannot find so much to laugh at as I would like.”

— Noël Coward

91. “Everybody was up to something, especially, of course, those who were up to nothing.”

— Noël Coward

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

— Noël Coward

93. “I can’t sing, but I know how to, which is quite different.”

— Noël Coward

94. “Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon The author of Lear remains unshaken Willie Herbert or Mary Fitton What does it matter? The Sonnets were written.”

— Noël Coward

95. “Labour leaders lead us all, though we know they bleed us all. Cheer our new Decline and Fall, Gibbon might have dreamed it all.”

— Noël Coward

96. “I write at high speed because boredom is bad for my health.”

— Noël Coward

97. “She stopped the show – but then the show wasn’t traveling very fast.”

— Noël Coward

98. “Squash – that’s not exercise, it’s flagellation.”

— Noël Coward

99. “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.”

— Noël Coward

100. “It’s no good pacing up and down. It won’t make the plane arrive any faster. Just sit down and accept that we’re delayed. You’re just making a fool of yourself.”

— Noël Coward