James Agate

Don't pity me now, don't pity me never; I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever.

— James Agate

Intelligence: I was asked tonight why I refuse to have truck with intellectuals after business hours. But of course I won t. 1. I am not an intellectual. Two minutes talk with Aldous Huxley, William Glock, or any of the New Statesman crowd would expose me utterly. 2. I am too tired after my day's work to man the intellectual palisade. 3. When my work is finished I want to eat, drink, smoke, and relax. 4. I don't know very much, but what I do know I know better than anybody, and I don't 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 re-made.

— James Agate

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

— James Agate

The Englishman can get along with sex quite perfectly so long as he can pretend that it isn't sex but something else.

— James Agate