Peter Ustinov quotes

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

• 12
• purpose

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

• 6
• love

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

• 6
• responsibility

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

• 5
• humor

Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.

• 3
• bones

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

• 3
• conformity

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.

• 2
• ambition

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

• 2
• optimism

Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.

• 1
• parenting

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

• 1
• diplomacy

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

• 1
• recognition

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

• 1
• audible

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.

• friends

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.

• confrontation

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

• age

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

• children

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

• dreams

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

• bottom

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

• laughter

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

• american

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

• amount

The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.

• ambition

The stupidity of a stupid man is mercifully intimate and reticient, while the stupidity of an intellectual is cried from the rooftops.

• ignorance

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

• diplomacy

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

• civilised

In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way of doing things that were not done.

• work

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.

• asparagus

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.

• prophecy

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

• ages

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

• believe

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.

• laughter

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

• sex

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

• corruption

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.

• being

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

• danger

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

• bad

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

• wedding

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.

• attitude

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

• work