Quotations and phrases - Peter Ustinov

A diplomat these days in nothing, but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally.
-- Peter Ustinov

A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.
-- Peter Ustinov

As for being a General, well, at the age of four with paper hates and wooden swords, we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.
-- Peter Ustinov

At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords we're all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it.
-- Peter Ustinov

Books, I don't know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can't for the life of me see why people have to write them.
-- Peter Ustinov

By increasing the size of the keyhole, today's playwrights are in danger of doing away with the door.
-- Peter Ustinov

Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.
-- Peter Ustinov

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
-- Peter Ustinov

Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
-- Peter Ustinov

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.
-- Peter Ustinov

Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.
-- Peter Ustinov

Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
-- Peter Ustinov

Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn't amount to much.
-- Peter Ustinov

I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.
-- Peter Ustinov

I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.
-- Peter Ustinov

I have four children which is not bad considering I'm not a Catholic.
-- Peter Ustinov

I have three daughters and I find as a result I played King Lear almost without rehearsal.
-- Peter Ustinov

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the world.
-- Peter Ustinov

I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
-- Peter Ustinov

If Botticelli were alive today he'd be working for Vogue.
-- Peter Ustinov

If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can't be done.
-- Peter Ustinov

In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
-- Peter Ustinov

Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them.
-- Peter Ustinov

It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
-- Peter Ustinov

It is youth that has discovered love as a weapon.
-- Peter Ustinov

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.
-- Peter Ustinov

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
-- Peter Ustinov

Men think about women. Women think about what men think about them.
-- Peter Ustinov

Monica Seles: I'd hate to be next door to her on her wedding night.
-- Peter Ustinov

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
-- Peter Ustinov

Parents are the bone on which children sharpen their teeth.
-- Peter Ustinov

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
-- Peter Ustinov

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.
-- Peter Ustinov

People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.
-- Peter Ustinov

Playwrights are like men who have been dining for a month in an Indian restaurant. After eating curry night after night, they deny the existence of asparagus.
-- Peter Ustinov

Sex is a conversation carried out by other means. If you get on well out of bed, half the problems of bed are solved.
-- Peter Ustinov

The French and the British are such good enemies that they can't resist being friends.
-- Peter Ustinov

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.
-- Peter Ustinov

The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.
-- Peter Ustinov

The point of living and of being an optimist is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.
-- Peter Ustinov

The social sciences were for all those who had not yet decided what to do with their lives, and for all those whose premature frustrations led them into the sterile alleys of confrontation.
-- Peter Ustinov

The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.
-- Peter Ustinov

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.
-- Peter Ustinov

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
-- Peter Ustinov

All quotations and phrases said by Peter Ustinov including famous quotes