"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was a well-known and well-loved English wit, playwright, composer, director, author, actor and singer. He was born 16 December 1899, and by the age six was already performing on the stage. By the age of sixteen he was writing plays in collaboration with his friends, and he wrote his first solo play at age nineteen. He quickly found that he had a gift for writing plays, alternating between comedies and dramas with equal success. Throughout his life he brought England to the world stage, traveling to America and throughout Europe, remaining popular through the great depression and World War II, and despite being (rightly) suspected of homosexuality. After the war his celebrity waned a bit, but he had successfully made himself an indispensable part of English and world culture. He was knighted in 1969, just a few years before his death on the 26th of March, 1973, after a long and successful career.