Peter Ustinov Quotes

“Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.”

“The only one who's always punctual is Death”

As quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green

“The sea is calm you said. Peaceful. Calm above, but below a world of gliding monsters preying on their fellows. Murderers, all of them. Only the strongest teeth survive. And who's to tell me it's any different here on board, or yonder on dry land.”

Act I
Romanoff and Juliet (1956)
Context: The only one who's always punctual is Death … whatever the time he always strikes his knell at the first streak of dawn … and believe me, he knows what he's doing. How I hate the dawn! It's the hour of the firing squad. The last glass of brandy. The ultimate cigarette. The final wish. All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice. Then it's the time of death on a grander scale, the hour of the great offenses … fix your bayonets boys …gentlemen, synchronize your watches … in ten seconds time the barrage starts … a thousand men are destined to die in order to capture a farmhouse no one has lived in for years... And finally dawn is the herald of the day, our twelve hours of unimportance, when we have to cede to the pressures of the powers, smile at people we have every reason but expediency to detest … A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

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

Master At Arms Claggert
Billy Budd (1962)

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

BBC obituary (2004)

“Claggert: We must serve the law, sir, or give up the right and privilege of service. It is only within that law that we may use our discretions according to our rank.
Captain Vere: You're so intelligent and so lucid for the rank you hold, Master At Arms.
Claggert: I thank you, sir.
Captain Vere: Yes, that's no flattery, Mr. Claggart. It's a melancholy fact. It's sad to see such qualities of mind bent to such a sorry purpose. What's the reason for it?
Claggert: I am what I am, sir. And what the world has made me.
Captain Vere: The world? The world demands that behind every peacemaker there be the gun, the gallows, the jail. Do you think it will always be so?
Claggert: I have no reason not to, sir.
Captain Vere: You live without hope?
Claggert: I live.
Captain Vere: But remember, Mr. Claggart, that even the man who wields the whip cannot defy the code we must obey and not be broken by it. That will be all.”

BBC obituary (2004)

Peter Ustinov Quotes about the world

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

Billy Budd (1962)

“Irrespective of nationality, soldiers are always open to the same discomfort and to the same comradeship the world over. I'll make things easy for you if you make things easy for me. That is, after all the unwritten law of the barracks.”

Dear Me (1977)

“We have fought two wars to end war. In 1976, the nations of this world set aside the same amount of money for its starving children as the lavished on armaments every two hours.”

The Loser : A Novel (1960)

“I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool, an optimist must know what a sad place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day.”

Dear Me (1977)
Context: We have fought two wars to end war. In 1976, the nations of this world set aside the same amount of money for its starving children as the lavished on armaments every two hours. Can any right-minded man afford to be a pessimist? That was a luxury for easier days. <!-- p. 167

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

Dear Me (1977), p. 167

Peter Ustinov Quotes about children

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

BBC obituary (2004)

“Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.”

As quoted in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Great Quotes for All Occasions (2008) by Elaine Bernstein Partnow, p. 12

“Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.”

As quoted in The Book of Quotes (1979) by Barbara Rowes, p. 164

Peter Ustinov: Trending quotes

“I hate being moved. I hate that man who came in. So self-righteous, so cruel. He made fun of me, that's why I cried. You never did that. You led me into temptation by your — politeness.”

Achtung! Vorurteile (2003); original German: "Der Terrorismus, der im furchtbaren 11. September kulminierte, ist ein Krieg der Armen gegen die Reichen. Der Krieg ist ein Terrorismus der Reichen gegen die Armen." typically cited in short: "Terrorismus ist der Krieg der Armen und der Krieg ist der Terrorismus der Reichen."

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

The Loser : A Novel (1960)

“A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.”

BBC obituary (2004)

Peter Ustinov Quotes

“They need enemies, not friends, to focus their two-dimensional ideas. Life for them is a simple tune, never an orchestration, or even a pleasant harmony.”

“It is unfortunate for all that no moral issue has ever been clearer. Any attempt to plea-bargain with outlaws and renegades will only be at the expense of honor, decency and self-respect.”

On Serbian war aims and human rights abuses during the post-Yugoslavian conlicts, and especially the Bosnian War, as quoted in (10 June 1993)
Context: It is unfortunate for all that no moral issue has ever been clearer. Any attempt to plea-bargain with outlaws and renegades will only be at the expense of honor, decency and self-respect. The Serbs, are two-dimensional people with a craving for simplicity and an ideology so basic it can be understood without effort. They need enemies, not friends, to focus their two-dimensional ideas. Life for them is a simple tune, never an orchestration, or even a pleasant harmony. Animals make use of their resources with far greater felicity than these retorted creatures, whose subscription to the human race is well in arrears.

“All the hideously calculated hypocrisy of men when they commit a murder in the name of justice.”

“It's hot. And there's a lot of it. I like everything about it except the flavor.”

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

Bill Budd, on the ship's gruel.
Billy Budd (1962)

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

BBC obituary (2004)

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

Dear Me (1977)

“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.”

As quoted in The Independent (25 February 1989)

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

As quoted in Contemporary Quotations (1988) by James Beasley Simpson

“Lieutenant Seymour: Wyatt, we do not deal with justice here, but with the law.
Lieutenant Wyatt: Was not the one conceived to serve the other?”

As quoted in The Observer (21 October 1968); a punctuation variant occurs in some publications: "If Botticelli were alive today, he'd be working for Vogue."

“To be gentle, tolerant, wise and reasonable requires a goodly portion of toughness.”

Billy Budd (1962)

“I am just a man, not fit to do the work of God… or the Devil.”

As quoted in Who Said That? (1984) by Renie Gee.

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

Captain Vere
Billy Budd (1962)

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

BBC obituary (2004)

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

As quoted in Contemporary Quotations (1969) by James Beasley Simpson

“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.”

As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs

“It's wrong to flog a man. It's against his being a man.”

Dear Me (1977)

“Flogging. The only solution to every problem. I warrant even the culprit himself doesn't know! It was just — his turn!”

Billy Budd
Billy Budd (1962)

“Politicians only get to the top because they have no qualifications to detain them at the bottom.”

Dansker
Billy Budd (1962)

“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.”

As quoted in International Celebrity Register (1959) Cleveland Amory
Variant: People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.

“Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.”

Dear Me (1977)

“You know Seymour, there are some men who cannot stand too much perfection. They see it as a disease, which must be stamped out at its first rash showing.”

As quoted in The Independent (12 September 1993)

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

Captain Vere
Billy Budd (1962)

“Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.”

As quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982) by Jonathon Green

“I'm Rally of Unionist Separist Extremes, sometimes known as the R. U. S. E. … It's the party at present in power.”

As quoted in The Observer (13 March 1955)

“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.”

Act I
Romanoff and Juliet (1956)

“Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.”

As quoted in The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert Andrews, p. 742

“I have Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, French and Ethiopian blood in my veins.”

2000 Years of Disbelief : Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (1996) by James A. Haught

“Sex is a conversation carried out by other means.”

As quoted in TIME magazine obituary, (5 April 2004) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501040412-607849,00.html, p. 22, which noted that his great-grandfather had married the Princess of Ethiopia.

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

As quoted in Marriages and Families (1997) by Mary Ann Lamanna, p. 69

“Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations.”

As quoted in Backstabbing for Beginners : My Crash Course in International Diplomacy (2008) by Michael Soussan, p. 316

“The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.”

BBC obituary (2004)