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. – Peter Ustinov
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. – Peter Ustinov
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from. – Peter Ustinov
People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven’t got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom. – Peter Ustinov
Books, I don’t know what you see in them. I can understand a person reading them, but I can’t for the life of me see why people have to write them. – Peter Ustinov
If the world should blow itself up, the last audible voice would be that of an expert saying it can’t be done. – Peter Ustinov
I am an optimist, unrepentant and militant. After all, in order not to be a fool an optimist must know how sad a place the world can be. It is only the pessimist who finds this out anew every day. – Peter Ustinov
Intelligent or not, we all make mistakes and perhaps the intelligent mistakes are the worst, because so much careful thought has gone into them. – Peter Ustinov
A diplomat these days is nothing, but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally. – Peter Ustinov
By increasing the size of the keyhole, today’s playwrights are in danger of doing away with the door. – Peter Ustinov
The point of living and of being an optimist is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come. – Peter Ustinov
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. – Peter Ustinov
At the age of four with paper hats and wooden swords we’re all Generals. Only some of us never grow out of it. – Peter Ustinov
Her virtue was that she said what she thought, her vice that what she thought didn’t amount to much. – Peter Ustinov
