Michael Caine Quotes (41 Quotes)

I'm a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.

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

English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.

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

A lot of my best parts I've been the second choice for, so you never get too egotistical about anything.

I wouldn't make an anti-American film. I'm one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans.

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn't.

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

My own mentality is that I've retired. They send me these scripts and if I absolutely have to do it, then I go to work.

If you think you're going to be up for an Oscar, you schedule your moviemaking.

My career is going better now than when I was younger. It used to be that I'd get the girl but not the part. Now I get the part but not the girl.

The Cider House Rules.

I'll always be there because I'm a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I've any talent is beside the point.

January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out.

When you reach the top, that's when the climb begins.

It's been a long, long journey. I just wanted to see whether I could get a nomination. And I've got one, I'm happy now and my work is done.

The standing ovation threw me... to be held in such regard in a town so full of talent is quite something.

Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I've been available to pick up an award.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I'm pig-headed.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

Comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write.

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

In an extended acceptance speech, Caine winked and said to co-producer Richard Fini, Dick, I wasn't here the last time I won, so give me a bit of extra time. ... Hannah and Her Sisters.

Yeah, ... but I gave him hell about those rotten teeth. I never had rotten teeth.

The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That's what I want to do.

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

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

The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

Save your money. You're going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.

Such is an actor's life. We must ride the waves of every film, barfing occasionally, yet maintain our dignity, even as the bulk of our Herculean efforts are keel-hauled before our very eyes. On filming MacHale's Navy.

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.

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

Anyone can write. But comedy, you've got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.

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

Alfie was the first time I was above the title; the first time I became a star in America.

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

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

I'm the audience's representative on earth.

When I'm doing an accent, you shouldn't notice it for a while, if I'm doing it right.

Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can't deal with a woman of their own age.