Noel Coward Quotes

“Dane lived above a greengrocer’s shop at 26 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, with her secretary, Olwen Bowen, herself a writer of children’s books, but who now devoted herself to the care of her companion. ‘One climbed up a rickety staircase and there was Winifred, surrounded by her paintings, sculptures, a piano and goodness knows how many books, where she would give many after-the-theatre parties . . .”
― Philip Hoare, Noel Coward: A Biography of Noel Coward

“The trouble with the world is, Frankie, that there are too many ideals and too little horse sense . . . Human beings don’t like peace and good will and everybody loving everybody else . . . they’re not made like that. Human beings like eating and drinking and loving and hating. They also like showing off, grabbing all they can, fighting for their rights and bossing anybody who’ll give ’em half a chance.”
― Philip Hoare, Noel Coward: A Biography of Noel Coward

“John Gielgud thought ‘he was never the same after leaving England, though he wouldn’t have admitted it. I think that tax business, and the way people reacted to it, shocked him . . . He wasn’t much good as a tax exile. He didn’t do a lot with his money. His houses were commonplace, the food dreadful, the decoration pretty amateurish.”
― Philip Hoare, Noel Coward: A Biography of Noel Coward

“Afterwards we were having drinks, and were just about to leave – Noel was very good at leavetaking – when they asked him to go and see someone who was about to have “deep sleep” treatment. When some mental cases are so disturbed, they put them to sleep for a day and a night. Anyway, this poor sailor had been shipwrecked in the North Sea three times, and had been stranded in freezing water for hours, and had fishbite – the fish actually bite your legs . . . Noel . . . stayed there for well over half an hour, talking to the boy in the dark, telling him it would be all right. Later we got a letter from the hospital saying that Noel had done more for that boy than all their treatment could.”
― Philip Hoare, Noel Coward: A Biography of Noel Coward