Daily Inspiration Quote by Noel Coward

Coward manages, in one neat crack, to flatter himself, mock himself, and needle the sanctimonious all at once. The line pretends to look heavenward, but it’s really aimed at earthly gatekeepers: critics, moralists, and the culture industry that withholds “adequate” recognition until an artist is safely embalmed. “Someday I suspect” plays coy, as if he’s too breezy to care; “my works may be adequately assessed” is the dagger, exposing how assessment is often less about craft than about timing, reputability, and the critic’s need to appear judicious.

The real punch is in the blasphemous sweetness of “Jesus has definitely got me for a sunbeam,” a phrase that borrows the sugary cadence of a hymn and turns it into a punchline. Coward—associated with sophistication, queerness, and urbane comedy—casts himself as precisely the sort of figure conventional piety would be suspicious of, then imagines Christianity recruiting him as decorative light. It’s a wink at the way institutions sanitize the inconvenient: once you’re dead, your edges become “charm,” your provocations become “period,” and you can be folded into the canon without anyone having to argue with you at dinner.

Written from a century that saw Coward both adored and scolded, the line anticipates the posthumous upgrade: when the scandals are over and the persona can’t talk back, the work suddenly seems serious enough to praise. The joke lands because it’s defensive and prophetic at the same time.