Peter O'Toole famous quotes

There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Honor #Arabia #Thieves

I have no intention of uttering my last words on the stage. Room service and a couple of depraved young women will do me quite nicely for an exit.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Couple #Theatre #Lasts

I do not choose to be a common man…it is my right to be uncommon—if I can…I seek opportunity—not security…I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed… to refuse to barter incentive for a dole… I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopias….
-- Peter O'Toole

#Dream #Opportunity #Men

I will not be an ordinary man, because I have a right to be extraordinary.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Men #Ordinary #Extraordinary

The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Exercise #Coffins #Behinds

Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs... and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Jobs #Tombstone #Blood

I did quite enjoy the days when one went for a beer at one's local in Paris and woke up in Corsica.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Beer #Paris #Enjoy

George Eliot is my only steady girlfriend. We go to bed together every night.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Girlfriend #Night #Together

There are only two things one has to bear in mind. One has to be credulous - able to believe - and skeptical - able to not believe, because if you are not skeptical, you will believe rubbish. If you are not credulous you will learn nothing and the only way to balance those two is to recognize the mystery of things.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Believe #Mind #Balance

Question: How do you know you're God? Answer: Simple. When I pray to him, I find I'm talking to myself.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Atheist #Simple #Talking

I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Men #Common #Sand

Marriage is forever. It's like cement.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Forever #Cement

If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it. If you give up drinking, don't go moaning about it; go back on the bottle. Do. As. Thou. Wilt.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Giving Up #Drinking #Bottles

Everyone praises Sachin Tendulkar. He may be a genius in his own right but in my book, Rahul Dravid is the artist. Dravid's defence tactics, his strokes, his cuts, his grace are truly amazing. I'd like to meet the chap sometime and take my hat off to him.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Book #Cutting #Artist

I can't stand light. I hate weather. My idea of heaven is moving from one smoke-filled room to another.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Hate #Moving #Weather

And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Dream #Hope #Vision

Irish women are always carrying water on their heads, and always carrying their husbands home from pubs. Such things are the greatest posture-builders in the world.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Husband #Home #Water

A victory? What have we won? We've won a rock in the middle of a wasteland, on the shores of a poisoned sea.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Sea #Rocks #Victory

When I work with young people, I grab energy from them by the handsful.
-- Peter O'Toole

#People #Energy #Young

It was a mistake and I made the mistake because I was conservative and played safe. And that way lies failure." "Must do it... constantly go to the well... constantly try, try, try. Dare. Dare, Dare. Who dares wins.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Inspirational #Motivational #Suicide

Not everyone can become a great artist; but a great artist *can* come from *anywhere*.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Food #Artist #Ego

Booze is the most outrageous of drugs which is why I chose it.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Drug #Booze #Outrageous

If you cannot say what you mean, your majesty, you will never mean what you say and a gentleman should always mean what he says.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Mean #Gentleman #Majesty

Being sober for so many years is getting interesting.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Food #Years #Interesting

There's a remedy for everything except death.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Death #Dying #Remedy

I have no memories I'm prepared to share with you.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Memories #Share #Prepared

For me, life has either been a wake or a wedding.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Wedding

I found him perhaps the least terrifying man I've ever met in the theater—because at first glance I could see through him and he could see through me, and he knew that I knew that he knew. Look, love, I've been bullied all my life by bigger experts than Larry Olivier, I can assure you, and he's just got to get in line.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Men #Experts #Looks

My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Emotional #People #Support

I'm a professional and I'll do anything - a poetry reading, television, cinema, anything that allows me to act.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Reading #Cinema #Television

We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Morning #Travel #Adventure

I'm a working stiff, baby, just like everybody else.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Baby #Stiffness

The moment you start dividing thought and feeling, the ratio of sinitive from the intuitive, you're dead. There is no difference between emotion and thought. You can be unreasonable.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Feelings #Emotion #Moments

It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Perfect #Return #Marmalade

Acting has been described as farting about in disguise.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Acting #Disguise #Has Beens

What I like is bottomless flattery.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Flattery

When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Religious #Atheist #Talking

Most difficult thing in the world, to write a play. Do you know the story of Shaw at the Fabian society? H.G. Welles said "I'm terribly sorry I've missed the last five meetings, I've been terribly busy, I'm engaged in writing a scientific pamphlet on the effects of radioactivity in 1984 and I've produced a novel, and various pieces of science fiction to do, and I've had a bit of personal trouble, and I had my copy to bring out for the newspaper." Shaw leapt up and said, "I've not missed one meeting, and I have written a play!" hardest thing in the world. If it were easy they'd all be at it.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Sorry #Writing #World

I'm a very physical actor. I use everything - toes, teeth, ears, everything. I don't simply mean physical in the sense of movement and vigour. I find myself remembering the shape of a scene by how I'm standing, what I'm doing.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Mean #Ears #Movement

My dear sir, it haunted me for the rest of my life.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Dear

People're artists they're doing something, taking a hunk of chaps, giving it some order, some form, and presenting it saying here is my little song and dance, my chaos.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Song #Artist #Giving

It's my job, it's what I do, it's what I'm on earth to do and it's who I am.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Jobs #Who I Am #Earth

He's a scoundrel, young Brad Pitt, who led me, his elderly colleague, astray more than once.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Elderly #Brad #Scoundrels

If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Ifs

One time in the late '50s, when Peter Finch, Laurence Harvey, and I were all offered the same movie role - the assumption being that we weren't friends - we marched up to producer Dino De Laurentiis's door and declared in unison, 'We don't think we're suitable for the part.'
-- Peter O'Toole

#Thinking #Doors #Roles

I'm not working-class: I come from the criminal classes.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Class #Criminals #Crime

The only thing I've ever been interested in teaching anyone in life is cricket.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Teaching #Life Is #Cricket

I wouldn't mind being a lord.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Mind #Lord

It's such a relief for me to sit in front of a tape recorder and not be using it to learn my lines.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Lines #Relief #Tape

I'm the most gregarious of men and love good company, but never less alone when alone.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Men #And Love #Good Company

I can't stand light. I hate weather.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Hate #Light #Weather

If man ever comes to perfect equilibrium with the environment, we'll all be redundant, perhaps because you won't need art or letters.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Art #Men #Perfect

The common denominator of all my friends is that they're dead.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Common #Lowest Common Denominator #My Friends

I am human, all too bloody human.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Bloody #Humans

If I'm not at my study by 10:00, 10:30, forget it, I can't write a word.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Writing #Study #Forget

I love working with young people, which is to me a big kick.
-- Peter O'Toole

#People #Bigs #Young

I wish to hazard my soul to opportunity.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Opportunity #Soul #Wish

There is a legend. And to protest is daft.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Legends #Protest #Daft

Anything an artist does is to show ourselves as we really are, which is a complex thing. I don't think that one work of Philosophy or Art, or Letters, or Acting, or Middle Playing, or Tightrope Walking, or Flea Circuses has made mankind better, if by better you mean kinder, wiser, more tolerant of each other. One thing self knowledge. Knoticayton: know thyself.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Art #Philosophy #Mean

You talk about auteur de cinema having things in their heads and putting them all across, can you imagine Shakespeare writing screenplays?
-- Peter O'Toole

#Writing #Imagine

I woke up one morning to find I was famous. I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard, wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Morning #Queens #Sunset

I tell my children to avoid theatre and go into cinema and TV.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Children #Theatre #Cinema

I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Beautiful #Actors #Tables

No one can take Jesus away from me.... There's no doubt there was a historical figure of tremendous importance, with enormous notions. Such as peace.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Jesus #Historical #Doubt

I don't go for this auto-cannibalism. Very damaging.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Psychology #Cannibalism

Life turned out much better than I thought. I knew after a little while that I could act.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Littles

It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Heart #Gone #Film

I can't tell you about acting. You can develop all the skills, voice, gesture, movement, you can develop by exercise and practice but finally fundamentally it's mining from yourself, from your own personality, from what you know. If you can't know it you can have a good guess by people you know or books you've read.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Book #Exercise #People

In the theater you can chain a blue-assed baboon in the stalls and with a good script, good actors, and a good set you'd have what is called a production. With the cinema someone has to know about lenses and fine things. I have no time for the "auteur de cinema." To me, it's meaningless.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Meaningless

If you do not surrender, I shall be forced to shoot you through the head with a rather large bullet.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Bullets #Surrender #Ifs

Always a bridesmaid never a bride my foot!
-- Peter O'Toole

#Feet #Bridesmaids #Brides

I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!!!
-- Peter O'Toole

#Stars #Actors #Movie Star

Writing is a kind of performing art, and I can't sit down to write unless I'm dressed. I don't mean dressed in a suit, but dressed well and comfortably and I have to be shaved and bathed.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Art #Writing #Mean

It grieves us to produce work that is not perfect.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Work #Grieving #Perfect

We all had such larks. Yes, it was hard work but the friendships and the genuine respect we had for one another, that side I shall miss greatly. I've stopped acting, but I don't think I've finished using my voice. I could, and probably will, record the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. They live at the side of my bed and are my constant companions.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Hard Work #Thinking #Voice

Do you not know that King Kong the first was just three foot six inches tall? He only came up to Faye Wray's belly button! If God could do the tricks that we can do he'd be a happy man!
-- Peter O'Toole

#Kings #Men #Feet

Films were never in my budget. Didn't occur to me till much later. I hoped for a long, good life, which I've had and I'm having as an actor. I didn't expect the rest.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Good Life #Afterlife #Long

It was around 1985 before I heard the news of President Kennedy's assassination.
-- Peter O'Toole

#President Kennedy's Assassination #News #Heard

Pope Paul III was the greatest thief in the history of the church.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Church #Thieves #Pope

I can make the best French toast.
-- Peter O'Toole

#French Toast #Toasts #I Can

The good parts are the people who don't make do. They're the interesting people. Lear doesn't make do.
-- Peter O'Toole

#People #Interesting #Lear

Actors have to stay optimistic. The moment we start thinking otherwise, we're dead.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Optimistic #Thinking #Actors

I became a professional cricket teacher about 20 years ago. I had a son born to me when I was 50, and I thought, he needs someone to bowl to him.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Teacher #Son #Years

I loved doing My Favorite Year, which was great fun, and The Ruling Class, which I made with all my chums.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Fun #Years #Class

It's very inconvenient because every time I finish, let's say, a chapter of a book, I think I'm going to ring Richard and then realize: Oh, Christ, I've buried him. I buried him last year.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Book #Thinking #Years

Where do I begin? I loved working with Kate Hepburn, which was one of the highlights of my life; Working with Richard Burton in Beckett was another great joy.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Joy #Beckett #Highlights

When my father would come home from the track after a good day, the whole room would light up; it was fairyland. But when he lost, it was black. In our house, it was always either a wake ... or a wedding.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Father #Home #Good Day

We were in the Arabian Desert for nine months. And I was having the time of my life. It could have been an archeological expedition, a military expedition.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Travel #Military #Nine

My own favorite is something called Rogue Male.
-- Peter O'Toole

#Males #Rogues #My Own