Noel Coward Theatre Quotations

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be.

Acting is not a state of being ... but a state of appearing to be. You can't be eight times a week without going stark staring mad. You've got to be in control.

The theatre should be treated with respect. The theatre is a wonderful place, a house of strange enchantment, a temple of illusion. What it most emphatically is not and never will be is a scruffy, ill-lit, fumed-oak drill hall serving as a temporary soap box for political propaganda.

She stopped the show - but then the show wasn't traveling very fast.

I will accept anything in the theatre . . . provided it amuses or moves me. But if it does neither, I want to go home.

Consider the public. Never fear it nor despise it. Coax it, charm it, interest it, stimulate it, shock it now and then if you must, make it laugh, make it cry, but above all never, never, never bore the living hell out of it.