81 Quotes by Laurence Olivier

I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it.

I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.

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

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.

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.

Have a very good reason for everything you do.

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.

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.