Michael Caine Quotes
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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.
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You don't retire from the movies. The movies retire you.
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We should vote for the welfare of the country, not for the welfare of the party.
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If you held a pistol at my head, I couldn't tell you who they're going to vote for Best Actor.
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If I work with a bad actor, my reaction is to immediately become worse than they are.
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I'd never been in one of those great big blockbusters.
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Hey, I always say: if you want a quiet life, become a monk.
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My closest friends are Roger Moore, who is an actor, Sean Connery, who is an actor, Terry O'Neill, who is a photographer, Johnny Gold, who was the boss of Tramp, and Leslie Bricusse, who is a composer.
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I was a repertory actor, which meant that I did a play every week. I was a different character every week; for a year, I was doing 40 or 50 characters.
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I always say to my wife, don't tell anyone I watch this shows like The X Factor and Pop Idol, but it fascinates me because I've done so many auditions and been knocked back.
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Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It's very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell.
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You're never too old to be crazy.
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My father was a fish market porter. So I grew up on fish, because he used to steal one a day, I grew up on the very best fish that money could buy, 'cause he only stole the good stuff.
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I'm looking for me to disappear, and the acting to disappear, and all you see is a real person.
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Am I a car aficionado? No: for me, cars have always been just for transport. I didn't even know anyone who had a car until I was 14 or 15.
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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.
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I always exposed the weakness rather than the nastiness.
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I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them jokes against yourself. If you praise yourself, your stories aren't funny.
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I've made the transition from star to character actor and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
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As an actor, I'll play anything.
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Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.
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A man should dress in a way that you don't notice. He looks good and you don't know why. But it's the tailoring, the materials, and the clothes.
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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.
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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.