Michael Caine Quotes

I don't work very much, and I just sit here waiting for a script that I can't refuse - and I'm not talking about money.

Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture.

Hey, I always say: if you want a quiet life, become a monk.

I'm forever testing myself. As a person and as an actor, I have no sense of competition.

I'm the audience's representative on earth.

What a lot of people dont realize about gangs, in my opinion, is that a gang is not there to attack you. Eighty percent of the people in a gang are there to stop anyone from attacking them. You join a gang for protection, not to go out and hit someone.

I don't want to sound like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, but I do think there should be some sort of national service for young men.

I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.

There is no point in competing with young talent...I just concentrate on getting better each day.

I never regret anything. I always said that when I'm old, I want to be sitting there regretting the things that I did and not the things that I didn't do; and now I'm old, and I don't regret anything! I had fun. I had fun, and I'm still having it.

Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.

We should vote for the welfare of the country, not for the welfare of the party.

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

If you go away on location for three months and your wife stays at home, you've made a whole new load of friends and she's made a whole new load of friends and you get home and you're kind of strangers.

I've had such a great time, I'd like to come back as me - and do it all over again.

I have a knack of making villainous people a little bit sympathetic, a bit of fun on screen.

There are loads of black actors.You can't say: I'm going to vote for him, he's not very good but he's black, [so] I'll vote for him. You've got to give a good performance.

In real life, I'm afraid of heights - and people who get moral convictions... Adolf Hitler in London.

The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly - because if they don't speak fast enough, nobody will listen to them.

I must admit, the only reason I joined an amateur dramatic society is because I couldn't get to kiss any girls - I was chasing girls all the time - and so I thought if I join it, there might be some love scenes. And there was a particular girl and I thought I might get to kiss Amy. I never did get to kiss Amy but I did get to kiss Elizabeth Taylor, so it was all right, a lot later.

Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called the Pledge. The magician shows you something ordinary. The second act is called the Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary. But you wouldn't clap yet, because making something disappear isn't enough. You have to bring it back.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

When becoming a character, you have to steal. Steal whatever you see. You can even steal from other actors' characterizations; but if you do, only steal from the best.

I see myself as 38, but you don't notice it.

This is your life, Larry. Learn to enjoy what you've got.

If you're a movie actor, you're on your own - you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.

I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

When it comes to politics, I believe you have to cut the cake so that everybody gets a piece, but at the same time, you have to keep in mind that somebody has to make the cake.

If you're a gardener you don't need a gym. [...] You're always carrying large sacks of manure all over.

The American cinema in general always made stories about working-class people; the British rarely did. Any person with my working-class background would be a villain or a comic cipher, usually badly played, and with a rotten accent. There weren't a lot of guys in England for me to look up to.

I have been rich and I have been poor. I know which one I prefer.

I can never be the hero now. You have to be young and all that stuff. I used to be the hero.

Sometimes, in a part, everything comes together.

I've been acting a long time, and I can play a Cockney gangster or a womanizer in my sleep or standing on my head. But what I try to do is I try to find characters that are as far away from me as I possibly can and then make them real. A French Nazi is about as far away from me as I can possibly get without actually going to Mars or something.

When I was 6 my father went to fight in the war, so he was my big hero. I thought he was the greatest thing.

I don't have any regrets because I'm very optimistic, and live each day as though it's the last.

As an actor, I'll play anything.

My dialogue coach said to do a Texas accent, you lean on the next word, and that was the clue to me.

You have to remember, I never became successful or wealthy till I was 30.

I spent my entire time reading books and going to the cinema, just to escape.

The greatest luxury is not driving. I didn't own a car until I was 30, and that was a Rolls-Royce, so it was cheaper to insure a chauffeur. I never want to drive again. My mind is always on other things. I hate parking, and I'm very short-tempered and would get road rage, I'm sure.

When I was a young actor I was in a lot of film doing one day work and two days' work, and they've included all those titles, which I don't even remember. I think I've played the lead in about 75 movies.

I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them jokes against yourself. If you praise yourself, your stories aren't funny.

One of the great things with comedy is that there's no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it's either uproarious or crap. That's the problem.

At 69, I got the girl! And it wasn't a 68-year-old girl, either.

I'm very, very family oriented. I'm a big cook and a good connoisseur and I only drink very good red wines now.

I don't have to work. I suppose I should retire. But I enjoy working.

I've always got to have one impossible dream on the back burner.