PETER USTINOV

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

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

It is youth that has discovered love as a weapon.

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

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.

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.

I have three daughters and I find as a result I played King Lear almost without rehearsal.

The truth is an ambition which is beyond us.

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

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

Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them.

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

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The French and the British are such good enemies that they can't resist being friends.

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.

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.

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