Comedians From England

"People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it."

"To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience."

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"

"Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat."

"I'm a classic example of all humorists — only funny when I'm working."

"If I can't really find a way to live with myself, I can't expect anyone else to live with me."

"Peter Sellers, a showbiz baby, was carried onstage two weeks into his life by vaudevillian Dickie Henderson, who encouraged the audience to join him in singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Little Peter instantly burst into tears and the audience erupted into laughter and applause. From Pete's perspective, this emotional scenario was played out more or less consistently until his death in 1980."

"Peter was always a mixed-up guy, a childish fellow. But if you're fond of children, you're also fond of childish men. He was always very helpful to me. After he was famous, and when I was still in trouble with the US embassy, he wrote a letter in support of me which was magnificent. But it is true that he was very cruel to his children. He was so hurt by the way children treat you when you're their father. I have been hurt by my children. But he was not in possession of a proper brain when it came to these things."

"He had a conspicuous individual talent, but it was interpretive, not directly creative. He could never have emulated Chaplin, Keaton or Jacques Tati and set up a whole project by himself, controlling its every detail even if the task took years. But there is no point carping. He had such a protean capacity that it would have been a miracle if he had been in full command of it."

"[W]hile at first I felt like a new boy in his presence, I soon relaxed: he was so welcoming, cheery and easy to write with. And he was effortlessly, brilliantly funny all the [fucking] time. We’d be sitting there discussing some aspect of the plot and he’d slide into a five-minute monologue that he could easily have bestowed on a West End audience."

"I writhe when I see myself on the screen. I'm such a dreadfully clumsy hulking image. I say to myself, "Why doesn't he get off? Why doesn't he get off?" I mean, I look like such an idiot. Some fat awkward thing dredged up from some third-rate drama company. I must stop thinking about it, otherwise I shan't be able to go on working."

"Criticism should be done by critics, and a critic should have some training and some love of the medium he is discussing. But these days, gossip-columnist training seems to be enough qualification. I suppose an ability to stand on your feet through interminable cocktail parties and swig interminable gins in between devouring masses of fried prawns may just possibly help you to understand and appreciate what a director is getting at, but for the life of me I can't see how."

"Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth."

"Peter's most outstanding achievement was to be Peter Ustinov … and he was an all-round wonderful person. I'm very glad to have known him, I shall miss him greatly."

"He was one of the great story tellers of modern times. The biggest shame is that we have so few people left these days who really tell stories."

"Jack of all trades, master of none — but what a jack! … In the end he was a disappointed man … He wanted to be a great playwright or a great author. He never quite made that."

"He would always see the bright side of something, even something that would be very annoying to him or to all of us around him. He would get over it and he would always find that there was something positive to be gained from it. He was a giver, throughout everything, and a wonderful warm person."

"The day had to come when he'd be gone. Thank God it was a long time coming. But he's a big thing to do without."

"I think he'd just get bored doing one thing. He would go from one thing to another I think because to him it was all one. That's what I loved about him. He was a very lovable man. I hardly knew him, I only met him two or three times, but each time was ingrained in my memory like being like some superb intellectual circus."

"I quite like talking myself, but when Peter was in the room there wasn't much point, you just had to listen. He was unimaginably, overwhelmingly gifted. You had to imagine a cross between Dr Johnson, Isaiah Berlin, Peter Sellers and don't forget Charlie Chaplin — because Peter was a great mime too. … He was inexhaustible. It was like talking to Europe, talking to history."

"He was a man for all seasons, perhaps the true renaissance man."

"Sunshine Sally and Peter Ustinov don't like the scene anyhow. I dropped acid on a Saturday night just to see what the fuss was about."

"It was as if all the world's wit were rolled into one portly fellow. … He spoke six languages, and a few others of his own comic invention. With gifts too wide-ranging to be contained in one art form, he wrote hit plays (Romanoff and Juliet) and books of nonfiction and short stories. … His spirit was essentially impish (as on a comedy album for which he provided all the voices and sound effects); his greatest role was Peter Ustinov, inexhaustible raconteur. The title of his 1977 autobiography summed up the world's opinion of this engaging, capacious talent: Dear Me."

"Then he lifted his body up To throw himself to a watery grave "Peter," I yelled "What about Billy Budd The innocent no one could save?""

"I was walking barefoot on St. Paul's bridge When I saw a man talking to God He was round and handsome Anachronistically A little odd I overheard his conversation He said, "I can't live in a world devoid of love." And the voice, the voice was so familiar It was the voice of Peter Ustinov "Peter," I whispered from the shadows "We've all been damaged by the 20th century A man like you can talk to God But can you spare a word for me? For I have loved you since the time I saw you in The Mouse that Roared." "That was Peter Sellers, my dear. Go away," he implored."

"Sir Peter had a magical way with children and an inimitable way of making their problems matter to people all over the world. He was one of UNICEF’s most effective and beloved partners, a man who exemplified the idea that one person can make a world of difference. … There are few parts of the globe where Sir Peter did not travel to meet with and advocate for children, and few communities that were not made better by his attention."

"He was a superb raconteur — never vicious, never cruel."

"He had a great sense of the good in people. He enjoyed the peculiarities that were part of humanity. … Filming can be desperately boring and he was always telling fantastic stories and being tremendously entertaining."

"The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come."

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

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

"Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit."

"To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal."

"It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously."

"I have four children which is not bad considering I'm not a Catholic."

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

"Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations."

"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."

"We have fought two wars to end war. In 1976, the nations of this world set aside the same amount of money for its starving children as the lavished on armaments every two hours. Can any right-minded man afford to be a pessimist? That was a luxury for easier days."

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

"Life was cheap in the Middle Ages. It has become cheaper since. It is only in specific battles for specific lives that our culture is put to the test, and with it our humanity."

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

"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."

"I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the world."

"To all those who by accident or design, have not been included in this book."

"I am just a man, not fit to do the work of God... or the Devil."

"Billy Budd: You didn't even hate him. I think that sometimes you hate yourself. I was thinking, sir, the nights are lonely. Perhaps I could talk with you between watches when you've nothing else to do. Claggert: Lonely. What do you know of loneliness? Billy Budd: Them's alone that want to be. Claggert: Nights are long. Conversation helps pass the time. Billy Budd: Can I talk to you again, then? It would mean a lot to me. Claggert: Perhaps to me, too. [His expression suddenly sours] Oh, no. You would charm me too, huh? Get away."

"Claggert: We must serve the law, sir, or give up the right and privilege of service. It is only within that law that we may use our discretions according to our rank. Captain Vere: You're so intelligent and so lucid for the rank you hold, Master At Arms. Claggert: I thank you, sir. Captain Vere: Yes, that's no flattery, Mr. Claggart. It's a melancholy fact. It's sad to see such qualities of mind bent to such a sorry purpose. What's the reason for it? Claggert: I am what I am, sir. And what the world has made me. Captain Vere: The world? The world demands that behind every peacemaker there be the gun, the gallows, the jail. Do you think it will always be so? Claggert: I have no reason not to, sir. Captain Vere: You live without hope? Claggert: I live. Captain Vere: But remember, Mr. Claggart, that even the man who wields the whip cannot defy the code we must obey and not be broken by it. That will be all."

"I'd rather be buried at sea than on the shore when I come to die. Will you stand by the plank, mates, so I can shake a friendly hand before I sink?"

"Lieutenant Seymour: Wyatt, we do not deal with justice here, but with the law. Lieutenant Wyatt: Was not the one conceived to serve the other?"