Quotes by James Agate

“Theatre director: a person engaged by the management to conceal the fact that the players cannot act.”

“New Years Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.”

“I wonder what it is in the New York air that enables me to sit up till all hours of the night in an atmosphere which in London would make a horse dizzy, but here merely clears the brain”

“The Englishman can get along with sex quite perfectly so long as he can pretend that it isnt sex but something else.”

“The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it”

“Dont pity me now, dont pity me never; Im going to do nothing for ever and ever.”

“I dont know very much, but what I do know I know better than anybody, and I dont want to argue about it. I know what I think about an actor or an actress, and am not interested in what anybody else thinks.”

“My mind is not a bed to be made and remade.”

“The worst of failure of this kind is that it spoils the market for more competent performers.”

“Your Englishman, confronted by something abnormal will always pretend that it isnt there. If, however, you force him to look into it, hell at once pretend that he sees the object not for what it is but for something that he would like it to be.”

I dont know very much but what I do know I know better than anybody, and I dont want to argue about it…My mind is not a bed to be made and re-made.

Long experience has taught me that in England nobody goes to the theatre unless he or she has bronchitis.

The English instinctively admire any man who has no talent and is modest about it.

New Years Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.