Quotes from Michael Douglas

My mother and father met at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was a senior and she was a junior, and their marriage didn't last very long.

Cigar smoking by it's very nature is much more reflective than interactive.

Human Rights for everyone is the necessary foundation upon which all of us may build a world where everybody may live in peace and serenity and plenty.

Someone reminded me I once said, 'Greed is good.' Now it seems it's legal.

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

The history of second-generation actors isn't great in our industry.

I've always worked hard and played hard, and I'm sure I'll be cleaning up my act in the future.

The message from national security experts and citizens around the world is clear: The only way to eliminate the global nuclear danger is to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

You just have to know what your responsibility is to the movie, and live up to that, and be considerate of the other actors in the scene... I have never been competitive in that way - I always want my leading ladies to be as good as they possibly can be.

Sometimes we spend more efforts with people that are strangers in terms of making an impression than the person that's closest to us. And you just gotta remember not to take for granted that person that's closest to you.

Learning patience was not an easy lesson.

I don't know if likeable, pleasant characters have enough conflict for me to want to do them. I admire those people, but I've never been that kind of screen presence who can do nothing. I need to do something.

If we confront anti-Semitism ... if we combat it individually and as a society, and use whatever platform we have to denounce it, we can stop the spread of this madness.

Control is what gives you privacy.

Directing talent is very nebulous. You know, it's not in front of you like an actor's performance.

Directors have so much else to do besides tell actors what to do. There are so many issues and problems.

There are not a lot of sons or daughters of actors who have made it. Hollywood is awash with failures.

Capitalism is part of our system, but it's not for the faint of heart.

Every empire eventually falls.

Like a lovely orchid, or anything else that's nurtured, marriage prospers and grows, but if it's ignored, it withers.

I grew up on the East Coast and was going to go to an Ivy League School, but at the last minute I decided to be a hippy. It was the protest movements on the war, peace movements were going on at our university. It was a fantastic time.

My father did 90-plus films. He was Spartacus!

When you've accomplished a certain amount in your career, you're not so focused on your ambitions.

I have nothing against her, and in fact I'm very fond of my first wife. But we should have ended that marriage eight or 10 years earlier.