“The old guys like me started in the theatre. I was in the theatre for nine years.”

You’ve got to be flexible. Directors do a massive amount of planning and homework, and if after all that your director decides to throw it all out of the window and shoot spontaneously, then you must follow his lead.

Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

I never bring a role home with me. The moment they say, ‘It’s a wrap,’ it’s gone completely. I’m a totally ruthless professional, and life is my family, not my work.

In film, other actors’ performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn’t giving you what you want, act as though he were.

I never regret anything. I always said that when I’m old, I want to be sitting there regretting the things that I did and not the things that I didn’t do; and now I’m old, and I don’t regret anything! I had fun. I had fun, and I’m still having it.

Hollywood is a cross between a health farm, a recreation center and an insane asylum. It’s a company town, and I happen to like the company!

A lot of people said, Who do you think you are? I told them I know exactly who I am and I’ll tell you exactly where I’m going.

I have been rich and I have been poor. I know which one I prefer.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

Great acting is about listening to what they are saying not waiting to deliver your lines.

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.

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.

You can’t get blase about something you haven’t done yet.

When it comes to politics, I believe you have to cut the cake so that everybody gets a piece, but at the same time, you have to keep in mind that somebody has to make the cake.

English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.

This is your life, Larry. Learn to enjoy what you’ve got.