Laurence Olivier Quotes

Don't waste your time striving for perfection; instead, strive for excellence - doing your best.

I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.

Acting, is not a profession for adults.

Acting is illusion, as much illusion as magic is - and not so much a matter of being real.

Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.

Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.

In the great wealth, the great firmament of your nation's generosities this particular choice may perhaps be found by future generations as a trifle eccentric, but the mere fact of it . . . the prodigal, pure, human kindness of it . . . must be seen as a beautiful star in that firmament which shines upon me at this moment, dazzling me a little, but filling me with warmth of the extraordinary elation, the euphoria that happens to so many of us at the first breath of the majestic glow of a new tomorrow.

Without acting, I cannot breathe.

Don't be afraid to be outrageous; the critics will shoot you down anyway.

We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.

What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?

I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.

You think you're an artist; prove it

In spite of a heavy disguise, a few days' growth on my face, dark glasses, a beret and one of William's jackets that fitted me not at all, as I emerged from a hotel in Lecce, a young fisherman pointed me out to his friends and said "Lavrenche Olivaire." It was not all that amazing; if you're not known in Italy, you're not known anywhere.

Work is life for me, it is the only point of life - and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.

I believe in the theater; I believe in it as the first glamorizer of thought. It restores dramatic dynamics and their relations to life size.

Above all, you must remain open and fresh and alive to any new idea.

There is a spirit in us that makes our brass to blare and our cymbals crash-all, of course, supported by the practicalities of trained lung power, throat, heart, guts.

[May 1958, on playing Macbeth at age 30 and age 48] When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.

[on whether he harbored any resentment at his forced retirement from the stage after he was fired by Britain's National Theater] I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare... An actor must act.

I have to act to live.

Have a very good reason for everything you do.

The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.

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.

Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor.

Life is enthusiasm, zest.

A sexual athlete is not likely to find sufficient energy for work of another athletic kind, and the acting of great parts most definitely was and always will be athletic, depending on inner if not on visible energy. Members of other professions that depend on the expenditure of physical energy must, I believe, find similar difficulties when attempting to double up on their energies. One has often heard that the most magnificent specimens of boxers, wrestlers and champions in almost every branch of athletic sport prove to be disappointing upon the removal of that revered jockstrap.

I'm rather bored by the subject - meaning me. It's a sort of a yoke, but at times you know, a yoke is a kind of comfort. And it's always there.

I often think that could we creep behind the actor's eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.

The humility to prepare and the self-confidence to bring it off.

I don't know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.

We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.

Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength.

You must have - besides intuition and sensitivity - a cutting edge that allows you to reach what you need. Also, you have to know life - bastards included - and it takes a bit of one to know one, don't you think?

Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.

The art of persuasion. The actor persuades himself, first, and through himself, the audience.

My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.

Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.

Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

Acting is an everlasting search for truth.

No matter how well you perform, there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy.

If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.

I am far from sure when I am acting and when I am not or, should I more frankly put it, when I am lying and when I am not. For what is acting but lying and what is good acting but convincing lying?

Of all the things I've done in life, directing a motion picture is the most beautiful. It's the most exciting and the nearest than an interpretive craftsman, such as an actor can possibly get to being a creator.

Autograph-hunting is the most unattractive manifestation of sex-starved curiosity.

Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is. You'll be afraid you can't achieve it. It's your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.

If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.