278 Notable Quotes By Sir Michael Caine, The Author Of The Elephant To Hollywood
Veteran actor, producer and author, Sir Michael Caine, has earned Oscar nomination in every decade since he began acting in the 1960s. He has acted in over hundred movies over the past seven decades, and has also written guide books, memoirs, and trivia books. He is known for his very vocal support for the Conservative party and his public criticism of high income-tax rates introduced by the Labour government, which had even prompted him to leave Britain for the US. He has often talked to the media about the views and ideologies he supports, which is the primary source of the quotes collected below. Apart from acting, writing and movies, he has touched on themes like life lessons, dreams, and regrets.
My circle of friends are not actors at all. None of them are actors, really, because they're are not available. They're always off somewhere.
When you're a young actor you ring your agent every evening. It's not like when you're in Hollywood where you do one picture a year. You just hope you get a day on television.
I need a challenge 'cause I don't get the girl anymore.
I just try to play more and more difficult roles.
I just work in order to improve myself as an actor which is what I've always done.
I've never taken drugs - if you take a drug of your choice, you get some ecstatic feeling.
I'm very, very family oriented. I'm a big cook and a good connoisseur and I only drink very good red wines now.
If you're a leading actor you don't work with another actor. You work with a lady.
![If you're a gardener you don't need a gym. [...] You're always carrying large sacks of manure all over.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/sir-michael-caine-116816.jpg)
If you're a gardener you don't need a gym. [...] You're always carrying large sacks of manure all over.
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.
We should vote for the welfare of the country, not for the welfare of the party.
Nobody's a criminal to himself. I never play a criminal like a bad person.
If I see any injustice done, I have a big enough mouth and the position to open up about it.
I'm not a betting man, and even if I was, I certainly wouldn't bet on this! I would not bet on the Best Actor.
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.
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.
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.
I spent my entire time reading books and going to the cinema, just to escape.
I think it would be great for the Academy to recognize old age.
![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.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/sir-michael-caine-116804.jpg)
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.
I learn the whole time. I think it would be dull if I thought I was going to work and wouldn't find something new. We always learn.
I spent my life in the library reading books.
I'm the happiest grandfather in the world, I promise you.
No English director would've cast me as an officer, I promise you. Not one.
People say to me, why did you do those films, and I say, for money. It wasn't for diamond rings or kidney shaped swimming pools in Beverly Hills, it was in order to improve the lot of everyone around me.
I've been in every disco in the world. I saw a picture of my wife Shakira and I dancing in Studio 54; I didn't even know someone had taken that picture.
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.
If you put someone on screen long enough, they become the hero.
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.
