He cultivated to perfection the sneer which he used like an oyster-knife, inserting it into the shell of his victim, exposing him with a quick-turn of the wrist, and finally flipping him over and inviting his audience to discard him as tainted and inedible.

-Annan, Noe«  l Gilroy, Baron
  On the critic F R Leavis. English Intellectuals Between the World Wars.

Imust have a London audience.I could never preach, but to the educated; to those who were capable of estimating my composition.

-Austen,Jane
  Mansfield Park, ch.34.

The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.

-Barkley, AlbenWilliam
Recalled on his death, 30  Apr1956.

When a public man lays his hand on his heart and declares that his conduct needs no apology, the audience hastens to put up its umbrellas against the particularly severe downpour of apologies in store for it. I won't give the customary warning. My conduct shrieks aloud for apology, and you are in for a thorough drenching.

-Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)
  'A Straight Talk' (parody of George Bernard Shaw), in the Saturday Review, 22 Dec.

Piano, n. A parlour utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.

-Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett
  The Cynic's Word Book. Retitled  The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

Ican't act.Ihaveneveracted. And Ishall neveract.What I do is suspend myaudience's power of judgement till I've finished.

-Hardwicke, Sir Cedric
   Attributed.

I acted so tragic the house rose like magic, The audience yelled,'You're sublime'. They made me a present of Mornington Crescent, They threw it a brick at a time.

-Hargreaves,W F
'The Night I Appeared as Macbeth' (song).

If Imade Cinderella, theaudience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

-Hitchcock, SirAlfred Joseph
  In Newsweek,11  Jun.

What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money.

-Olivier, Laurence Kerr, Baron
Attributed.

In broadcasting your audience is conjectural, but it is an audience of one.

-Orwell, George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair
  'Poetry and the Microphone'.

If I don't practise for one day, I know it; if I don't practise for two days, the critics know it; if I don't practise for three days, the audience knows it.

-Paderewski, IgnaceJan
Quoted in Nat Shapiro An Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music (1978).

   President Reagan is a rhetorical roundheels, as befits a politician seeking empathy with his audience.

-Safire,William
  Language Maven Strikes Again.

I know two kinds of audience onlyöone coughing and one not coughing.

-Schnabel, Artur
My Life and Music.

I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience: it also marks the time, which is four o'clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere. 788

-Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
  Mr Puff, of his tragedy 'The Spanish Armada'.The Critic, act 2, sc.2.

A psychiatrist is a man who goes to the Folies-Berge'  re and looks at the audience.

-Stockwood, (Arthur) Mervyn
  In the Observer,15 Oct.

Ambushing the audience is what theatre is all about.

-Stoppard, SirTom originally Tom Straussler
  In Newsweek,16 Jan.

Why does one never hear of government funding for the preservation and encouragement of comic strips, girlie magazines and TV soap operas? Because these genres still hold the audience they were created to amuse and instruct.

-Updike,John Hoyer
  In the NewYork Review of Books,18 Jul.

The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.

-Wilde, Oscar Fingal O'FlahertieWills
  Attributed comment after the poor reception of Lady Windermere's Fan.