Cecil Beaton Quotes & Sayings

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”

“More varied than any landscape was the landscape in the sky, with islands of gold and silver, peninsulas of apricot and rose against a background of many shades of turquoise and azure.”

“Perhaps the world's second-worst crime is boredom; the first is being a bore.”

“Americans have an abiding belief in their ability to control reality by purely material means... airline insurance replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash.”

“Never in the history of fashion has so little material been raised so high to reveal so much that needs to be covered so badly.”

“All I want is the best of everything and there's very little of that left.”

“San Francisco is perhaps the most European of all American cities.”

“I have the worst ear for criticism; even when I have created a stage set I like, I always hear the woman in the back of the dress circle who says she doesn't like blue.”

“On close inspection, this device turned out to be a funereal juke box - the result of mixing Lloyd's of London with the principle of the chewing gum dispenser.”

“What is elegance? Soap and water!”