John Betjeman Quotes

People don't want to hear about me having leather walls or gold toilets.

For me, life is not about gold taps and marble all over the place.

Rich men's houses are seldom beautiful, rarely comfortable, and never original. It is a constant source of surprise to people of moderate means to observe how little a big fortune contributes to Beauty.

I've been to parties in L.A. that are mind-blowing. I mean, quite literally mind-blowing. People get cellphones in the party bag, that sort of thing. Fabulous, fabulous parties.

The product of extraordinary wealth allied to a taste for the sumptuous.

I pretend I'm one of the royal family when I'm in a hotel and that the hotel belongs to me - it is a palace.

I saw such personal wealth there that were I to describe it, the people of Persia would never believe it. I could discover no end or limit to their wealth, and I never saw such ease and comfort anywhere

I don't have a chateau in France. There's no private airplane or yacht.

I like to be surrounded by splendid things.

Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.

Decadence is wonderful.

When times are bad, people like to lose themselves in the sheer glamour of another period: beautiful wardrobes, magnificent meals served in elegant settings.

You get spoiled on 'Captain America,' where your trailer's two blocks long and it's got three bedrooms.

We partied with the royal rich people, and we felt like rock stars. We drank all the whiskey in the place.

I sometimes wonder if two thirds of the globe is covered in red carpet.

I'm the kind of person who would have liked to have lived at the Plaza. I love crystal chandeliers and gold leaf, velvets and mirrors, Oriental rugs and marble.

When we think of India, most of us are in fact thinking of Rajasthan, that large splotch of dun-colored desert in the country's northwest which, from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, was ruled by a succession of maharajas whose sense of color, opulence, and splendor created the most enduring images of India in the West.

Never in a million years would I want to live at Versailles with Marie Antoinette or anybody else. I hate to tell you this but I did not even like visiting Versailles. I found it just too ornate. It was like a complete diet of cotton candy, marzipan, and whipped cream.

Luxury will be always around, no matter what happens in the world.

My friends are very rich. Elizabeth Taylor sends flowers the size of the bathtub. I'm not kidding.

The life of the wealthy is one long Sunday.

The champagne was flowing like the Potomac in flood.

Luxury is anything you don't need, right? I mean, you need food, water, clothing, shelter... but good wine, good food, beautiful interiors, nice clothes; those aren't necessities, they are luxuries - it's all luxury.

On the soft bed of luxury many kingdoms have expired.

It was a brilliant affair; the water flowed like champagne.