Quotes from Richard Burton

A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles.

Little islands are all large prisons: one cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow.

Every word I write I suspect the next day.

If I had a chance for another life, I would certainly choose a better complexion.

All the bad things that have ever happened to me have always happened in Rome.

'The Robe' was lousy but an almighty hit. I was dull as ditchwater and an almighty flop.

You've got to swank in Hollywood.

I am as dispassionate as it is possible for a human being to be and not be a machine.

You reach the top of the heap, but it's a circle, and you slip on the down side, maybe for years. You get scared.

It is impossible to tell you what is consisted in the act of love.

I might run from her for a thousand years and she is still my baby child. Our love is so furious that we burn each other out.

Indeed he knows not how to know who knows not also how to un-know.

My sister Edith died at the age of 43. She was the youngest sister and the funniest. I had to harrumph and snort a few times to stop the weeping.

When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk.

I abhor mere prettiness.

My next film, 'The Prince Of Players,' was Hollywood's first turkey in CinemaScope - when CinemaScope was new and hotter than a pistol.

I've done the most awful rubbish in order to have somewhere to go in the morning.

Sometimes I am so much my father's son that I give myself occasional creeps.

I have to think hard to name an interesting man who does not drink.

How do you live with one person for 13 years and another for eight and find both as alien as strangers?

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

If you're going to make rubbish, be the best rubbish in it.

You may be as vicious about me as you please. You will only do me justice.

False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.