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Attitude
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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
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Conformity & Nonconformity
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In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
-Peter Ustinov
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Diplomacy
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I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
-Peter Ustinov
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A diplomat these days in nothing, but a head waiter who is allowed to sit down occasionally.
-Peter Ustinov
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Dreams
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Unfortunately, the balance of nature decrees that a super-abundance of dreams is paid for by a growing potential for nightmares.
-Peter Ustinov
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Friends
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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, Dear Me, 1977
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Humor
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Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
-Peter Ustinov
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Ignorance & Stupidity
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The stupidity of a stupid man is mercifully intimate and reticient, while the stupidity of an intellectual is cried from the rooftops.
-Peter Ustinov, Dear Me
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Laughter
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I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.
-Peter Ustinov
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Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.
-Peter Ustinov
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Love
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Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
-Peter Ustinov
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Optimism
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The point of living, and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.
-Peter Ustinov
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Parenting
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Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.
-Peter Ustinov
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Prophecy
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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.
-Peter Ustinov
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Purpose
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Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.
-Peter Ustinov
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Recognition
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To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal.
-Peter Ustinov
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Responsibility
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It is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
-Peter Ustinov
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Sex
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Sex is a conversation carried out by other means. If you get on well out of bed, half the problems of bed are solved.
-Peter Ustinov, Interview by Wendy Leigh, Speaking Frankly (1978)
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Work
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In my day, there were things that were done, and things that were not done, and there was even a way of doing things that were not done.
-Peter Ustinov
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Books by and about Peter Ustinov