Michael Caine Quotes

I don't want to be an English actor doing the greatest American accent you've ever heard. I want to be an American doing nothing.

Wherever I live, if there isn't a restaurant I want to go to of a certain type, then I open it. That's all. For selfish reasons.

In my early days, I didn't know what a good film or a bad film was, and I was trying to make some money. As it happens I was lucky. I made some good films.

I feel that I helped the working class by just saying there are no barriers, which I consider to be true.

Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ....not waiting to deliver your lines.

You don't retire from the movies. The movies retire you.

It's vital to have your own space so you aren't constantly in each other's pockets.

I am often asked which of my films has come closest to my own ideal of performance, and I always answer, 'Educating Rita.'

You're never too old to be crazy.

If someone is very upper-class, you have a stereotype of him which is probably true. If someone has a working-class accent, you have no idea who you're talking to.

I think what is British about me is my feelings and awareness of others and their situations. English people are always known to be well mannered and cold but we are not cold - we don't interfere in your situation. If we are heartbroken, we don't scream in your face with tears - we go home and cry on our own.

In film, other actors' performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn't giving you what you want, act as though he were.

Some men just want to watch the world burn

I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.

I was in Korea. I've noticed all my life I see elderly people who have been close to death in an illness and they're absolutely cured and they say, now I know how to live my life. I've seen death. That happened to me when I was 19. It was a terrible, terrifying thing. And I live my life like those people decided to do when they were old. So, since I was 19, I've had the most fun possible every single day, even when I had a rough life. It was the army which taught me about life, and the theater which taught me how good it could be.

Someone said to me the other day: "Well, you're eventually going to live until 110." And I said: "Well, who's going to keep me? What age do I retire? 100?" How are you going to live all those years and who is going to keep you doing it? I have a couple of grandchildren now so I'm banking on them.

In my day, the drug was alcohol and the weapon was a fist, so it was very sort of innocent and primitive. Now you've got drugs, guns, and knives, which are so lethal.

Obsession is a young man's game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.

Just because I have made a point of never losing my accent it doesn't mean I'm an eel-and-pie yob.

I wear a baseball cap all the time, which I would never normally wear, and I walk very fast.

I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work. In fact, I'm offered so much good stuff that it's not so occasional.

One of the main things about Cockney is, you speak at twice the speed as Americans. Americans speak very slow.

That to me is what my idea of film acting should be. There shouldn't be any acting. You should just be watching a real person.

What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write, and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing.

Nobody's a criminal to himself. I never play a criminal like a bad person.

I've never taken drugs - if you take a drug of your choice, you get some ecstatic feeling.

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar.

80 percent of any gang is not there to attack someone. They're there so no one will attack them.

I just love to go home, no matter where I am, the most luxurious hotel suite in the world, I love to go home.

A man's body may grow old, but inside his spirit can still be as young and as restless as ever.

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.

I don't meet stockbrokers or carpenters or coal miners; I spend all day with actors, composers and photographers.

My career is going better now than when I was younger. Now I get the part. Back then, I'd get the girl.

If I see any injustice done, I have a big enough mouth and the position to open up about it.

I've done my job and I've got the picture out there, and I'm very happy with it.

Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day.

I'm looking for me to disappear, and the acting to disappear, and all you see is a real person.

You can't get blase about something you haven't done yet.

No English director would've cast me as an officer, I promise you. Not one.

I had been nine years in the theatre and hadn't had massive success. My only thing was I wanted to be an actor and I didn't care when, where, or how much for.

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.

I don't like getting up early in the morning and learning all that stuff. I work with offers that I can't refuse.

The three actors I admire the most are all dead. Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy and the French actor, Jean Gabin. They're all very natural, sort of masculine without being overly macho.

I feel like 35. At 35 you're old enough to know something and young enough to look forward to what you can do with the knowledge. So I stayed at 35!

I sit waiting for things that I can't refuse.

To be a movie star, you have to carry a movie. And to carry a movie where you play the title role is the supreme example.

There's quite a lot of bad stuff written about me. My wife even says a lot of bad stuff about me. But she is wonderful.

My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.