Actors From England

"Morris: I'll never speak to you again until the day I die! Gary: Well, we can have a nice little chat then, can't we?"

"Gary: Beryl Willard is extremely competent. Beryl Willard has been extremely competent, man and boy, for forty years. In addition to her extreme competence, she has contrived, with uncanny skill, to sustain a spotless reputation for being the most paralysing, epoch-making, monumental, world-shattering, God-awful bore that ever drew breath...I will explain one thing further - it is this. No prayer, no bribe, no threat, no power, human or divine, would induce me to go to Africa with Beryl Willard. I wouldn't go as far as Wimbledon with Beryl Willard. Liz: What he's trying to say is that he doesn't care for Beryl Willard."

"Gary: You ought never to have joined the Athenaeum Club, Henry: it was disastrous. Henry: I really don’t see why. Gary: It’s made you pompous. Henry: It can’t have. I’ve always been too frightened to go into it."

"So if I could employ A little magic that will finally destroy This dream that pains me and enchains me But I can't because I'm mad... I'm mad about the boy"

"Will it ever cloy This odd diversity of misery and joy I'm feeling quite insane and young again And all because I'm mad about the boy"

"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."

"On the silverscreen He melts my foolish heart in every single scene Although I'm quite aware that here and there are traces of the cad About the boy"

"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"

"People are wrong when they say that the opera isn't what it used to be. It is what it used to be — that's what's wrong with it!"

"The actual facts are so simple. I love you. You love me. You love Otto. I love Otto. Otto loves you. Otto loves me. There now! Start to unravel from there."

"In Bengal, To move at all Is seldom if ever done."

"In Hong Kong They strike a gong And fire off a noonday gun To reprimand Each inmate Who's in late."

"In a jungle town Where the sun beats down To the rage of man and beast, The English garb Of the English sahib Merely gets a bit more creased. In Bangkok At twelve'o'clock They foam at the mouth and run, But mad dogs and Englishmen Go out in the midday sun."

"In Rangoon The heat of noon Is just what the natives shun, They put their Scotch Or Rye down And lie down."

"It seems such a shame When the English claim The Earth, That they give rise To such hilarity And mirth."

"It's such a surprise For Eastern eyes To see, That though the English are effete, They're quite impervious to heat."

"Mad Dogs & Englishmen Go out in the midday sun. The Japanese don't care to, The Chinese wouldn't dare to, The Hindus and Argentines Sleep firmly from twelve to one, But Englishmen Detest a Siesta."

"The natives grieve When the white men leave Their huts. Because they're obviously, Definitely Nuts."

"In tropical climes There are certain times Of day When all the citizens retire To take their clothes off and perspire. It's one of those rules That the greatest fools Obey, Because the sun is far too sultry And one must avoid its ultry- Vi'let ray."

"Amanda: Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."

"There shall be no love lost."

"Elyot: Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs."

"Elyot: I met her on a house party in Norfolk. Amanda: Very flat, Norfolk. Elyot: There's no need to be unpleasant. Amanda: That was no reflection on her, unless of course she made it flatter."

"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."

"I'll see you again, Whenever spring breaks through again."

"Having to read a footnote resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love."

"Your motivation is your pay packet on Friday. Now get on with it."

"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."

"Proceeding on the assumption that the reader of this preface is interested in the development of my musical talent, I will try to explain, as concisely as I can, how, in this respect, my personal wheels go round. To begin with, I have only had two music lessons in my life. These were the first steps of what was to have been a full course at the Guildhall School of Music, and they faltered and stopped when I was told by my instructor that I could not use consecutive fifths. He went on to explain that a gentleman called Ebenezer Prout had announced many years ago that consecutive fifths were wrong and must in no circumstances be employed. At that time Ebenezer Prout was merely a name to me (as a matter of fact he still is, and a very funny one at that) and I was unimpressed by his Victorian dicta. I argued back that Debussy and Ravel had used consecutive fifths like mad. My instructor waved aside this triviality with a pudgy hand, and I left his presence forever with the parting shot that what was good enough for Debussy and Ravel was good enough for me. This outburst of rugged individualism deprived me of much valuable knowledge, and I have never deeply regretted it for a moment."

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

"He loved me true did Harry-boy and I loved him true, and if the happiness we gave each other was wicked and wrong in the eyes of the Law and the Church and God Almighty, then the Law and the Church and God Almighty can go dig a hole and fall down it."

"The Battle of Britain was twenty-three years ago and the world has forgotten it. Those young men, so many of whom I knew, flew up into the air and died for us and all we believed in... What did they die for? I suppose for themselves and what they believed was England. It was England then – for a few brave months... The peace we are enduring is not worth their deaths. England has become a third-rate power, economically and morally. We are vulgarised by American values. America, which didn't even know war on its own ground, is now dictating our policies and patronising our values. I came away from that gentle, touching, tatty little party with a heavy and sad heart. The England those boys died for has disappeared. Our history, except for stupid, squalid social scandals, is over... We are now beset by the 'clever ones', all the cheap frightened people who can see nothing but defeat and who have no pride, no knowledge of the past, no reverence for our lovely heritage... I despise the young, who see no quality in our great past and who spit, with phoney, left-wing disdain, on all that we, as a race, have contributed to the living world... I say a grateful goodbye to those foolish, gallant young men who made it possible for me to be alive today to write these sentimental words."

"Television is for appearing on, not looking at."

"I love criticism as long as it is unqualified praise."

"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."

"Charles: Anything interesting in The Times? Ruth: Don't be silly, Charles."

"Our families have traditions We've heard of a thousand times Our ancestors were unequivocally right. They frequently went on missions To rather peculiar climes To lead the wretched heathen to the light. Though some of them got beaten up and some of them stampeded And quite a lot were eaten up - a few of them succeeded. On one of these expeditions An uncle we thought a bore Turned out to be more spirited than ever he'd been before.Poor Uncle Harry Wanted to be a missionary So he took a ship and sailed away. This visionary Hotly pursued by dear Aunt Mary Found a South Sea isle on which to stay. The natives greeted them kindly, And invited them to dine On yams and clams and human hams and vintage coconut wine The taste of which was filthy But the after-effects divine."

"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."

"Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington Don't put your daughter on the stage The profession is overcrowded And the struggle's pretty tough And admitting the fact she's burning to act That isn't quite enough She's a big girl and though her teeth are fairly good She's not the type I ever would be eager to engage I repeat, Mrs. Worthington, sweet Mrs. Worthington Don't put your daughter on the stage."

"[On the phone] My dear Jim's dead...No dear, he jumped off Waterloo Bridge - Yes, the one next to Charing Cross - No, no, no that's Blackfriars."

"To make a proper estimation of his merits as a dramatic writer, we are to consider what was the state of the drama and the usual practice of the stage-writers in those early times; and what alterations and improvements it received from the plays of Jonson. Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher, are the only contemporary writers that can be put in competition with him; and as they have excellencies of genius superior to those of Jonson, they have weaknesses and defects which are proportionably greater. If they transcend him in the creative powers, and the astonishing flights of imagination, their judgment is much inferior to his; and if he doth not at any time rise so high, neither perhaps doth he sink so low as they have done."

"Those who have most deeply studied Jonson and most truly felt his power, will hesitate the longest before pronouncing a decisive judgment on the place he occupies among the foremost poets of our literature. One thing, however, can be considered as certain in any estimate which we may form. His throne is not with the Olympians but with the Titans; not with those who share the divine gifts of creative imagination and inevitable instinct, but with those who compel our admiration by their untiring energy and giant strength of intellectual muscle. What we most marvel at in his writings, is the prodigious brain-work of the man, the stuff of constant and inexhaustible cerebration they contain. Moreover, we shall not be far wrong in saying that, of all the English poets of the past, he alone, with Milton and Gray, deserves the name of a great and widely learned scholar."

"With the death of Ben Jonson and the beginning of the civil troubles the great literary society that had met at the Mermaid and the Devil Taverns was dissolved, and London saw no real literary society again until the time of Pope and Swift."

"When Ben Jonson presented a masque entitled "News from the New World," his new world was not the newly found continent of North America, but the new world of science, the world revealed by the telescope of Galileo."

"A gentleman reading a poem that began withWhere is that man that never yet did hear Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen?[Jonson] calling his cook, asked if he had ever heard of her, who answering "No," demonstrate to him Lo, there the man that never yet did hear Of fair Penelope, Ulysses' queen."

"His opinion of verses. That he wrote all his first in prose, for so his master Camden had learned him.That verses stood by sense without either colours or accent; which yet other times he denied."

"He hath consumed a whole night in lying looking to his great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars and Turks, Romans and Carthaginians, fight in his imagination."

"He saw in a vision his eldest son (then a child and at London) appear unto him with the mark of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if it had been cutted with a sword, at which amazed he prayed unto God, and in the morning he came to Mr. Camden's chamber to tell him, who persuaded him it was but an apprehension of his fantasy at which he should not be disjected; in the meantime comes there letters from his wife of the death of that boy in the plague. He appeared to him (he said) of a manly shape, and of that growth that he thinks he shall be at the resurrection."

"Shakespeare, in a play, brought in a number of men saying they had suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where there is no sea by some 100 miles."

"That Donne himself, for not being understood, would perish."