Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.
Michael Caine
Obsession is a young man's game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.
At age 11, I went to a Jewish school. I speak Yiddish. I'm Church of England Protestant. My father was Catholic, and my mother was Protestant. My wife is a Muslim.
When you reach the top, that's when the climb begins.
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.
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.
What a lot of people don't 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.
For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.
The difference between a movie star and a movie actor is this - a movie star will say, 'How can I change the script to suit me?' and a movie actor will say. 'How can I change me to suit the script?'
My most useful acting tip came from my pal John Wayne. Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much.
Save your money. You're going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.
You cannot have one bathroom. And it don't matter how much you love your wife and everything, 'cause you wind up with no room at all. You just get a little corner, and you've got a toothbrush and your paste and a shaving brush and a razor.
Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.
My wife, my daughters, even my grandchildren are funny. You've got to keep a sense of humor because anger destroys you.
I'm forever testing myself. As a person and as an actor, I have no sense of competition.
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 life has got to develop as you get older, and I don't want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life.
People say I've 'retained' my Cockney accent. I can do any accent, but I wanted other working-class boys to know that they could become actors.
Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.
You can see all sorts of things in film acting if you know where to look and what to look for. One thing I often notice is that the actor is looking for his mark, the place where he has to stand to be in the right place in the shot.
I've always loved reprehensible people because they're so much more interesting to play on screen.
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.
My wife comes with me on all the movies, but she is not an appendage to a film star or anything like that. She is a completely intertwined partner. She is the other half of me. Also, we're still very much in love with each other. We always have been, we always will be.
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!
Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I've been available to pick up an award.
When you're a movie star and you're young, you are always playing someone who's a better fighter, a better lover, a better everything than you.
I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.
My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda, they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson, who wasn't too cool. He was a nice, homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked.
I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.
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 was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. Imagine signing that autograph! You'd get a broken arm. So I changed my name to Michael Caine after Humphrey Bogart's 'The Caine Mutiny,' which was playing in the theater across from the telephone booth where I learned that I'd gotten my first TV job.
The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse.
The first thing I'll do if I want to look really crappy is, I don't wear any makeup at all.
I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work.
To me, growing old is great. It's the very best thing - considering the alternative.
I learned about life before I went into the theater, which is why I've been so happy. I was a soldier.
I'm a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.
I don't meet stockbrokers or carpenters or coal miners; I spend all day with actors, composers and photographers.
I try to make everyone around me feel comfortable.
Movie acting is about covering the machinery. Stage acting is about exposing the machinery. In cinema, you should think the actor is playing himself, if he's that good. It looks very easy. It should. But it's not, I assure you.
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 wouldn't make an anti-American film. I'm one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans.
In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn't know anyone unknown who didn't become famous.
I'll always be there because I'm a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I've any talent is beside the point.
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.
I regard the theater as a woman I loved dearly who treated me like dirt.
I won an Academy Award for 'The Cider House Rules,' playing an American.
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.
The standing ovation threw me... to be held in such regard in a town so full of talent is quite something.
I don't do it often, but I do cry. I also laugh a lot; people tell me I'm funny and I do like to laugh.
