Somebody who knows how to make love in a canoe.
Pierre Berton (1920–2004), Canadian writer, giving his definition of a Canadian
I can’t give too many kisses. The Press is watching. Perhaps later.
Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000), fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada, to a female campaign worker
A caress is better than a career.
Elisabeth Marbury (1856–1933), American playwright, in Careers for Women, 1933
I trained to be a priest – started to. I went to seminary school when I was 11. I wanted to be a priest but when they told me I could never have sex, not even on my birthday, I changed my mind.
Johnny Vegas, British comedian
A career is a wonderful thing, but you can’t hold on to it on a cold night.
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962), American actress
They say an actor is only as good as his parts. Well, my parts have done me pretty well, darling.
Barbara Windsor, British actress
Sexual harassment at work. Is it a problem for the self-employed?
Victoria Wood, British comedienne
Beware of men on aeroplanes. The minute a man reaches 30,000 feet, he immediately becomes consumed by distasteful sexual fantasies which involve doing uncomfortable things in those tiny toilets. These men should not be encouraged; their fantasies are sadly low-rent and unimaginative. Affect an aloof, cool demeanour as soon as any man tries to draw you out. Unless, of course, he’s the pilot.
Cynthia Heimel, American feminist writer
Woe to the man who tries to be frank in lovemaking.
George Sand (Amantine Lucile Dupin, 1804–1876), French writer
Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words.
Joyce Brothers (1927–2013), American psychologist and advice columnist
Among external causes are springtime, which is a particularly dangerous season, warm climates, improper clothes, rich food, indigestion, mental overwork, nervousness, habits of defective cleanliness, especially of the local kind, prolonged sitting or standing, too monotonous walking, sitting cross-legged, spanking, late rising, petting and indulgence corsets that produce stagnation or hyperaemia of blood and great straining of memory.
Professor G. Stanley Hall (1844–1924), pioneering American psychologist, talking about lust in Adolescence, 1904
The itemized phone bill ranks up there with suspender belts, Sky Sports channels and Loaded magazine as inventions women could do without.
Maeve Haran, British writer, in interview, 1999
Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his penis is tiny and cannot spell.
Erica Jong, American writer
I used to be told if I talked about my sexuality in any way that we wouldn’t have a tennis tour.
Billie Jean King, American tennis player, winner of 12 Grand Slams
Don’t get married to an actress, because they’re also actresses in bed.
Roberto Rossellini (1903–1977), Italian film director
When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.
Matt Groening, American cartoonist and creator of The Simpsons
Katie Graham is going to get her teat caught in a big fat wringer.
John N. Mitchell (1913–1988), US Attorney General under President Nixon, on the Washington Post’s pursual of the Watergate story
The British Board of Censors will not pass any seduction scene unless the seducer has one foot on the floor. Apparently sex in England is something like snooker.
Fred Allen (1894–1956), American comedian and wireless star
If a man is pictured chopping off a woman’s breast, it only gets an ‘R’ rating; but if, God forbid, a man is pictured kissing a woman’s breast, it gets an ‘X’ rating. Why is violence more acceptable than tenderness?
Sally Struthers, American actress, in Life magazine, 1984
Censorship feeds the dirty mind more than the four-letter word itself.
Dick Cavett, American chat-show host, in Playboy magazine, 1971
It is appalling that naked women cannot be kept out of the nation’s living room.
Billy Graham, American Christian evangelist, in support of censorship
I’ve got nothing against sex, it’s a marvellous human activity; but it was watching others do it all the time that got me down.
John Trevelyan (1903–1986), former Secretary of the Board of British Film Censors, explaining why he resigned, 1974
That must be removed. It clearly portrays a male orgasm.
Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013), first female British Prime Minister, when chairwoman of the Finchley Arts Society, standing before a canvas with a single white splash on it
The steamy film 9½ Weeks has been temporarily banned from Worthing’s Dome cinema until it has been privately viewed by Worthing council’s moral watchdogs. The film Body Lust, the best bit of crumpet in Denmark, will be shown instead.
Reported in the Worthing Guardian
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity it should end there.
Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987), American writer and politician
What’s wrong with appealing to prurient interest? I really want the Supreme Court to tell me that fucking is dirty and no good.
Lenny Bruce (1925–1966), American comedian
I couldn’t bend down to put a dish in the dishwasher without him seeing it as an invitation for a shag.
Denise Welch, British actress, Loose Women, ‘Girls Night Out’
You know that old saying: once you go dead, no one’s better in bed.
Jeaniene Frost, American novelist, in One Foot in the Grave, 2008
I’m as confident as Cleopatra’s pussy.
Bette Midler, American actress
I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that has ever happened, and vice versa.
Frank Zappa (1940–1993), American musician
A century and a half ago there were no knickers and girls read the Bible; now they wear impenetrable bodystockings and read Portnoy’s Complaint.
Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980), British theatre critic
I don’t think he has changed that much. He still eyes a pretty lady – and why not? This is part of his magnetism. This is Warren. What has changed, I hope, is that he doesn’t seem to have that urge to bed these lovely ladies. Now that’s a major change.
Annette Bening, American actress, on being asked what convinced her that marriage had changed Warren Beatty
We’re living in an age where you have to call a chick and ask her if she’ll wear a dress tonight. And they say: ‘You’re weird.’
Tim Rose (1940–2002), American singer
It’s hard for me to get used to these changing times. I can remember when the air was clean and the sex was dirty.
George Burns (1896–1996), American actor and comedian
We were born in an era in which it was a disgrace for women to be sexually responsible. We matured in an era in which it was an obligation.
Janet Harris, American writer, in The Prime of Ms America, 1975
This Ken Starr report is now posted on the internet. I bet Clinton’s glad he put a computer in every classroom.
Jay Leno, American chat-show host, referring to the report investigating Bill Clinton’s misdemeanours in the Sunday Times, 1998
Sex and older women used to be considered an oxymoron, rarely mentioned in the same breath.
Gail Sheehy, American writer and social critic
‘Charm’ – which means the power to effect work without employing brute force – is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman’s strength just as strength is a man’s charm.
Havelock Ellis (1859–1939), British physician and writer
It’s a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have.
J.M. Barrie (1860–1937), British writer
Charming women can true converts make
We love the precepts for the teacher’s sake.
George Farquhar (1677–1707), Irish playwright
She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.
Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Irish playwright
Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), American novelist
You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear questions.
Albert Camus (1913–1960), French-Algerian Nobel Prize-winning writer
You know what, I’m very attracted to someone who makes me laugh and is that charming. Really, I could be charmed by anyone. I’m just a sucker for somebody that is charming.
Beyoncé, American singer
Simon is the most charismatic man I’ve met – it’s like he’s trancing you. It’s actually quite scary.
Cheryl Cole, British singer, on Simon Cowell
Lord, give me chastity – but not yet.
Saint Augustine (AD 354–430), early Christian theologian
As a child of eight, Mr Trout had once kissed a girl of six under the mistletoe at a Christmas party, but there his sex life had come to an abrupt halt.
P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975), British writer, in Bachelors Anonymous, 1973
Of all sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity.
Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915), French writer and critic
A woman’s chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864), American novelist
An unattempted woman cannot boast of her chastity.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), French writer
In the old days poverty kept Latin women chaste: hard work, too little sleep, these were the things that saved their humble homes from corruption.
Juvenal (AD 60–130), Roman poet
Only one woman in thousands has been endowed with the God-given aptitude to live in chastity and virginity … God fashioned her body so that she could be with a man, to have and to rear children. No woman should be ashamed of that which God made and intended her.
Martin Luther (1483–1546), German Catholic priest and seminal figure in the Reformation
Nothing makes women more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize most those who are hardest to come at, or that nothing beside chastity, with its collateral attendants truth, fidelity and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things.
Anonymous contributor, in Spectator, 1711
She is chaste who nobody has asked.
Ovid (43 BC–AD 17), Roman poet
The common man believes that in order to be chaste, a woman must not be too clever; in truth it is doing chastity too little honour to believe it can be found beautiful only by the blind.
Marie le Jars de Gournay (1565–1645), French feminist writer, in Le Promenoir de M. de Montaigne, 1594
Those who choose matrimony do well; those who choose virginity or voluntary abstinence do better.
Pope Paul II (1417–1471)
Filth and old age; I’m sure you agree, are powerful wardens upon chastity.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400), British poet, known as the Father of English Literature
There is no doubt that the practice is a means of suppressing and controlling the sexual behaviour of women. Female circumcision is a physiological chastity belt.
Sue Armstrong, South African journalist, on assignment for the World Health Organisation, in New Scientist, 1991
The advantages are manifold. Not only will the purity of the virgin be maintained but the fidelity of the wife exacted. The husband will leave the wife without fear that his honour will be outraged and his affections estranged.
A French advertisement for a chastity belt, from The Girdle of Chastity by Eric Dingwall, 1931
Made of iron, and consisting of a belt and a piece which came up under and was locked in position, so neatly made that once a woman was bridled it was out of the question for her to indulge in the gentle pleasure, as there were only a few little holes for her to piss through.
Pierre de Bourdeille, Seigneur de Brantôme (1540–1614), French writer, describing the chastity belt, in The Lives of Gallant Ladies
The Crusaders, we are told, put their wives into chastity belts before they sailed off for the Holy Land. They did not, for certain, put their own sexual equipment out of action for the duration.
Mary Stott (1907–2002), British journalist and feminist
Chastity – the most unnatural of sexual perversion.
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), British writer
Someone told me the delightful story of the Crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him saying, ‘You gave me the wrong key!’
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977), American writer
None of the 15 legal men, comprising judge, senior and junior barristers and solicitors, had ever witnessed childbirth. Is it possible, the judge was to ask, for a woman to give birth standing up? Women have given birth underwater, in aeroplanes, in comas, lying unnaturally flat on their backs in hospital beds and even after death, but this man wondered if they could do it standing up …
Nell McCafferty, Irish playwright and feminist campaigner
Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.
Sam Levenson (1911–1980), American writer and television host
Simpson succeeded in proving that there was no harm in giving anaesthetics to men, because God put Adam into a deep sleep when he extracted his rib. But male ecclesiastics remained unconvinced as regards the sufferings of women, at any rate in childbirth.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), British philosopher
My obstetrician was so dumb that when I gave birth he forgot to cut the cord. For a year that kid followed me everywhere. It was like having a dog on a leash.
Joan Rivers, American comedienne
To enter life by way of the vagina is as good a way as any.
Henry Miller (1891–1980), American writer
I have an intense desire to return to the womb. Anybody’s.
Woody Allen, American actor and film-maker, in interview with Esquire
To my embarrassment, I was born in bed with a lady.
Wilson Mizner (1876–1933), American playwright
If men had to have babies they would only ever have one each.
Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997)
Often women have babies because they can’t think of anything better to do.
Lord Beaumont of Whitley (1928–2008), Liberal Party politician and Anglican clergyman
I had a Jewish delivery: they knock you out with the first pain and they wake you up when the hairdresser shows.
Joan Rivers
Dr Snow gave that blessed chloroform and the effect was soothing, quieting and delightful beyond measure.
Queen Victoria (1819–1901), describing her labour in her journal of 1853
Publication is the male equivalent of childbirth.
Richard Ackland, British journalist, 1974
The artificial insemination of animals is taken for granted to improve the breed and product. Human insemination is a different ball-game.
The Catholic Register of Canada
Dear Mary,
We all knew you had it in you.
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), American wit, congratulating a friend on the successful outcome of her pregnancy, 1915
I’m a woman of a certain age who doesn’t have kids and never really settled down … I enjoy kids but not for long periods. I think they’re adorable and funny and sweet, and then I have a headache.
Kim Cattrall, American actress
Sometimes when I look at my children I say to myself, ‘Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.’
Lillian Carter (1898–1983), mother of President Jimmy Carter
An ugly baby is a very nasty object, and the prettiest is frightful when undressed.
Queen Victoria (1819–1901)
It takes a woman 20 years to make a man of her son, and another woman 20 minutes to make a fool of him.
Helen Rowland (1875–1950), American writer and humorist
A loud noise at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
Father Ronald Knox (1888–1957), British clergyman and BBC broadcaster
From the moment of birth, when the Stone-Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence called love, as its father and mother and their parents and their parents before them have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potential.
R.D. Laing (1927–1989), British psychiatrist
Babies are the enemies of the human race.
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992), American science-fiction writer
Don’t take up a man’s time talking about the smartness of your children; he wants to talk to you about the smartness of his.
E.W. Howe (1853–1937), American writer and editor
Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories.
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680), British poet and courtier
Men are generally more careful of the breed of their horses and dogs than of their children.
William Penn (1644–1718), real-estate entrepreneur and founder of the state of Pennsylvania
I learned to walk as a baby, and I haven’t had a lesson since.
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962), American actress, when asked about her famous wiggle
Oh my son’s my son till he gets him a wife, but my daughter’s my daughter all her life.
Dinah Mulock Craik (1826–1887), British writer, in Young and Old, c.1887
I want to have children and I know my time is running out. I want to have them while my parents are still young enough to take care of them.
Rita Rudner, American actress and comedienne
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), 16th President of the United States
After doing One Fine Day, and playing a paediatrician on ER, I’ll never have kids. I’m going to have a vasectomy.
George Clooney, American actor
Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.
Mark Twain (1835–1910), American writer, in Notebook, published posthumously in 1935
I only have two rules for my newly born daughter: she will dress well and never have sex.
John Malkovich, American actor
Remember, men, we’re fighting for this woman’s honour, which is probably more than she ever did.
Groucho Marx (1880–1977), American comedian, in Duck Soup, 1933
Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can’t figure out what from.
Mae West (1893–1980), American actress
There is no middle-class sexual style for men. What would it be based on? Golfing? Discussing stock options? Attending church? Downing highballs?
Edmund White, American writer
Diana Ross is a big inspiration to all of us. We all grew up watching everything about her – her mic placement, her grace, her style and her class.
Beyoncé, American singer
I think there’s a fine line between being a slut and being classy. I walk in between that line.
Adele, British singer
I’m at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I’ve just had a mirror put over my kitchen table.
Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004), American comedian
Whereas a lot of men used to ask for conversation when they really wanted sex, nowadays they often feel obliged to ask for sex even when they really want conversation.
Katharine Whitehorn, British journalist
I try to talk to one person. I’ve got this picture of a woman, a housewife, young or young at heart. She’s probably on her own virtually all day. She’s bored with the routine of housework and her own company, and just for her I’m the chatty, slightly cheeky romantic visitor.
David Hamilton, British radio broadcaster, quoted in Is This Your Life?: Images of Women in the Media, edited by Josephine King and Mary Stott, 1977
Love is just a system for getting someone to call you darling after sex.
Julian Barnes, British writer, in Talking It Over, 1991
The trouble with talking about acting is that it’s like sex. It’s enormously fun to do but just dreadfully embarrassing when you have to talk about it.
Paul Bettany, British actor
I think sex is very interesting for most people, but I’m interested in sex as a way of communication. I’m not interested in the fantasy version of a sex scene.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, American actress
There are only two superlative compliments you can receive from a woman: ‘I think you’re a master chef, and I think you’re a good lay.’ The two basic drives in life.
Rod Steiger (1925–2002), American actor
Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are. That is the difference between the sexes.
Mrs Cheveley, in An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (1854–1900), Irish playwright
The Queen did fish for men’s souls, and had so sweet a bait that no one could escape her network.
Sir Christopher Hatton (1540–1591), British politician and Lord Chancellor of England, on Queen Elizabeth I
The only time I worry is when I’m fishing. When I’m standing in the river for hours, I sometimes have a pee in the water. I’m always petrified some cameraman is going to catch me at it.
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales
I told him I’ve been too fucking busy – or vice versa.
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), American wit
If you don’t ring me, I’m going to kick you in the bollocks next time I see you.
Victoria Beckham, British fashion designer and former Spice Girl, to husband David after giving him her phone number, from The Beckhams by Andrew Morton
I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them.
Jay McInerney, American writer
Sex is better than talk. Ask anybody in this bar. Talk is what you suffer through so you can get to sex.
Val, played by Woody Allen, in Hollywood Ending, 2002
The sex organ has a poetic power, like a comet.
Joan Miró (1893–1983), Spanish artist
I have been led to imagine that the few extraordinary women who have rushed in eccentrical directions out of the orbit prescribed to their sex were male spirits, confined by mistake in female frames.
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), British feminist writer, in A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792
One may see a girl in her mother-nakedness dancing around a hippy guy, and another looking at the spectacle with passing amusement. Her boobs and the hirsute ‘pelvic triangle’ look prominent in the soliciting gestures.
Som Deva, Indian sexologist, describing the sexual habits of the alternative society in The Marching Eros, 1983
The underground was rather shy and inhibited. Later, though, when ‘horizontal recruitment’ became the more favoured form of recruitment on the libbo left, then it really did get going. The libertarian loony left scene of the early ‘70s was very strong on rogering and leg-over: it was a leg-over-based scene.
David Robins (1944–2007), British sociologist
A show is like having an orgasm. It’s like having an incredible, natural climax. And then suddenly, it’s all finished and you don’t know what to do next.
Rod Stewart, British singer
So basically I did this whole show carrying 100 pounds, looking out of one eye, dancing. Then my tits explode at the end. It’s not as easy as it looks.
Lady Gaga, American singer
I love tackling, love it. It’s better than sex.
Paul Ince, former professional footballer
It gave me a taste for comedy again. I kissed him in EastEnders and I kissed his bum in Hustle, so you could say I’ve topped and tailed him. He looks quite alarmed when he sees me now.
Sheila Hancock, British actress, on her reunion with fellow actor Martin Kemp, in Woman, 2012
I like nice clothes whether they’re dodgy or not.
David Beckham, British footballer
We don’t call it sin today – we call it self-expression.
Baroness Stocks (1891–1975), British writer and campaigner for women’s suffrage
In a non-permissive age, she made remarkable inroads against the taboos of her day, and did so without even lowering her neckline.
Leslie Halliwell (1929–1989), British film critic, on Mae West
I’ve got a nurse’s outfit and a policewoman’s uniform, and a naughty housewife costume. I am a naughty housewife, anyway, because I don’t clean the house enough.
Coleen Nolan, British singer and television presenter, on Loose Women
Western man, especially the Western critic, still finds it very hard to go into print and say: ‘I recommend you go and see this because it gave me an erection.’
Kenneth Tynan (1927–1980), British theatre critic, in Playboy magazine, 1977
It is better to be thought of as a heart-throb than as a pig.
Tom Conti, British actor
Bill Clinton has a small penis and Hillary has broad ankles.
Gennifer Flowers, American model and actress, alleged to have had an affair with Bill Clinton
It’s one thing to shoot a man, quite another to cast aspersions upon his lovemaking.
Teresa Medeiros, American romance novelist, in The Vampire Who Loved Me, 2006
One magazine said that no one writes sex in the back of a Bentley better than Jackie Collins.
Jackie Collins, British novelist