Quotes from Laurence Olivier

My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.

Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.

Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.

I am far from sure when I am acting and when I am not or, should I more frankly put it, when I am lying and when I am not. For what is acting but lying and what is good acting but convincing lying?

I'm rather bored by the subject - meaning me. It's a sort of a yoke, but at times you know, a yoke is a kind of comfort. And it's always there.

Art is a little bit larger than life - it's an exhalation of life and I think you probably need a little touch of madness.

A man's prime interest in life must be his work.

The humility to prepare and the self-confidence to bring it off.

Life is enthusiasm, zest.

I believe in the theater; I believe in it as the first glamorizer of thought. It restores dramatic dynamics and their relations to life size.

I can't think I've ever loved anybody quite as much... My mother was my life, really; she was my entire world.

I suppose, unconsciously, I used all my wives to further my journey up the ladder.

Don't waste your time striving for perfection; instead, strive for excellence - doing your best.

We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.

Have a very good reason for everything you do.

I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.

Nobody is going to pretend that I am younger than I am. Apart from anything else, it is in the papers all the damn time - every time I have a birthday.

Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.

The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.

I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare. An actor must act.

I often think that could we creep behind the actor's eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.

'Richard III' is a really difficult play to film - it's involved, often obscure. I felt it absolutely necessary to do more simplification than I've ever done before.

When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.

We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.