It's no use to go and take courses in playwriting any more than it's much use taking courses in acting. Better play to a bad matinée in Hull, it will teach you much more than a year of careful instruction.

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

I'm not a heavy drinker, I can sometimes go for hours without touching a drop.

If he (Peter O'Toole) had been any prettier it would have been Florence of Arabia.

My philosophy is as simple as ever - smoking, drinking, moderate sexual intercourse on a diminishing scale, reading and writing (not arithmetic). I have a selfish absorption in the well-being and achievement of Noel Coward.

If you must have motivation, think of your paycheck on Friday.

The Stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand, To prove the Upper Classes, Have still the Upper Hand.