Kenneth Tynan: Likeness

“Every speech, for Olivier, is like a mass of marble at which the sculptor chips away until its essential form and meaning are revealed. No matter how ignoble the character he plays, the result is always noble as a work of art.”

Kenneth Tynan

"Laurence Olivier" (1966), p. 208
Profiles (1990)

Art

“I do not see the EEC as a great love affair. It is more like nine middle-aged couples with failing marriages meeting at a Brussels hotel for a group grope.”

Kenneth Tynan

"This going into Europe will not turn out to be the thrilling mutual exchange supposed. It is more like nine middle aged couples with failing marriages meeting in a darkened bedroom in a Brussels hotel for a group grope." - E.P. Thompson, "On the Europe Debate," The London Times (27 March 1975) http://www.bloomsbury.com/ARC/detail.asp?EntryID=104755&bid=5
Misattributed

Love , Marriage , Age

“Does the critic wish to influence the kind of film that costs more than £250,000? It is as if he were to send a postcard to General Motors explaining that he would like them to make a raft next year, or a helicopter, instead of a car.”

Kenneth Tynan

"Footnote on Cinema" (undated), p. 260
Tynan Right and Left (1967)

Cars

“She shows herself to the audience like the Host to the congregation.”

Kenneth Tynan

"Marlene Dietrich," p. 217
Profiles (1990)

“William Congreve is the only sophisticated playwright England has produced; and like Shaw, Sheridan, and Wilde, his nearest rivals, he was brought up in Ireland.”

Kenneth Tynan

Curtains (1961)

“It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.”

Kenneth Tynan

Sallust, Bellum Catilinae, X, 5. This particular translation of the original Latin is from the essay "On Liberty" by Abraham Cowley: "Sallust, therefore, who was well acquainted with them both and with many such-like gentlemen of his time, says, 'That it is the nature of ambition' (Ambitio multos mortales falsos fieri coegit, etc.) 'to make men liars and cheaters; to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths; to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.'" http://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext02/cowes10.txt The Wikiquote page for Sallust has the quote and a different translation.
Misattributed

Men , Friendship , Truth , Nature