Peter Ustinov

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.

— Peter Ustinov

Politicians only get to the top because they have no qualifications to detain them at the bottom.

— Peter Ustinov

I hate being moved. I hate that man who came in. So self-righteous, so cruel. He made fun of me, that's why I cried. You never did that. You led me into temptation by your — politeness.

— Peter Ustinov

Irrespective of nationality, soldiers are always open to the same discomfort and to the same comradeship the world over. I'll make things easy for you if you make things easy for me. That is, after all the unwritten law of the barracks.

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

To be gentle, tolerant, wise and reasonable requires a goodly portion of toughness.

— Peter Ustinov

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

— 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

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

— Peter Ustinov

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

— Peter Ustinov

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

— 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

Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares.

— Peter Ustinov

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.

— Peter Ustinov

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

— Peter Ustinov

There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

— Peter Ustinov

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.

— Peter Ustinov

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

— Peter Ustinov

Sex is a conversation carried out by other means.

— Peter Ustinov

Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.

— Peter Ustinov

I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

I'm Rally of Unionist Separist Extremes, sometimes known as the R.U.S.E. … It's the party at present in power.

— Peter Ustinov

2nd Soldier: Do you mean that, as a General, you're not the tiniest bit ambitious for our military future? General: I prefer our military past. The harm's done and there it is. As for being a General, well, 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

Good-bye to you too ol' Rights of Man!

— Peter Ustinov

It's hot. And there's a lot of it. I like everything about it except the flavor.

— Peter Ustinov

Flogging. The only solution to every problem. I warrant even the culprit himself doesn't know! It was just — his turn!

— Peter Ustinov

It's wrong to flog a man. It's against his being a man.

— Peter Ustinov

The sea is calm you said. Peaceful. Calm above, but below a world of gliding monsters preying on their fellows. Murderers, all of them. Only the strongest teeth survive. And who's to tell me it's any different here on board, or yonder on dry land.

— Peter Ustinov

You know Seymour, there are some men who cannot stand too much perfection. They see it as a disease, which must be stamped out at its first rash showing.

— Peter Ustinov

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?

— Peter Ustinov

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?

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— 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

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

— Peter Ustinov

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.

— Peter Ustinov

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.

— Peter Ustinov

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.

— 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

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.

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov

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

— 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

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

— 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

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

— Peter Ustinov

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

— Peter Ustinov