Richard Burton Quotes

When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn`t know how to play them when I was drunk.

Cable from Laurence Olivier to Richard Burton at the height of the Cleopatra (1963) scandal: "Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?" Burton replied: "Both."

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

My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn`t drink alcohol was not to be tolerated. I grew up in that belief.

(On adultery, in 1963): "The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore."

I`ve played the lot: a homosexual, a sadistic gangster, kings, princes, a saint, the lot. All that`s left is a Carry On film. My last ambition.

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

Perhaps most actors are latent homosexuals and we cover it with drink. I was once a homosexual, but it didn`t work.

I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it`s rather an attractive image.

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

When asked why he refused to see his performance in Cleopatra (1963): "Well, I don`t want to kill myself."

The only thing in life is language. Not love. Not anything else.

All I wanted to do was to live, pick up a new Jag, and act at the Old Vic.

All great art comes from people who are either ugly or have a terrible inferiority complex. I know no one who is beautiful and produces art.

(About Elizabeth Taylor): "Elizabeth has great worries about becoming a cripple because her feet sometimes have no feeling in them. She asked if I would stop loving her if she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. I told her that I didn`t care if her legs, bum and bosoms fell off and her teeth turned yellow. And she went bald. I love that woman so much sometimes that I cannot believe my luck. She has given me so much."

(About his love of reading): "Home is where the books are."

(About being hired to play Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963)): "Well, I suppose I must don a breastplate once more to play opposite Miss Tits."

(On Elizabeth Taylor): "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."

(On Elizabeth Taylor): "At thirty-four she is an extremely beautiful woman, lavishly endowed by nature with a few flaws in the masterpiece: She has an insipid double chin, her legs are too short and she has a slight potbelly. She has a wonderful bosom, though."

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

Richard Burton is now my epitaph, my cross, my title, my image. I have achieved a kind of diabolical fame. It has nothing to do with my talents as an actor. That counts for little now. I am the diabolically famous Richard Burton.

An actor is something less than a man, while an actress is something more than a woman.

Certainly most movie executives were making love to the starlets. But then, so were most of us actors.

"I was up to, I`m told, because, of course, you don`t remember if you drink that much, about two-and-a-half to three bottles of hard liquor a day. Fascinating idea, of course, drink on that scale. It`s rather nice to have gone through it and to have survived." (1974)

"The most astonishingly self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen." - On Elizabeth Taylor

"If I had his talent, I`d drop Shakespeare tomorrow." - On Frankie Howerd

"I believe in this film absolutely. It is a kick against the system." - On Staircase (1969)

"And I`m too old. I`m now thirty-six. And I look about 5` 2". I`m 5` 10" but I look smaller. It`s because I`m so wide or my head`s too big or something." (1962)

(on Elizabeth Taylor) I love her, not for her breasts, her buttocks or her knees but for her mind. It is inscrutable. She is like a poem.

(on Sophia Loren) She is as beautiful as an erotic dream. Tall and extremely large bosomed. Tremendously long legs. They go up to her shoulders, practically. Beautiful brown eyes, set in a marvelously vulpine, almost satanic, face.

I still smoke too much. I think it gives my voice an edge. (1984)

(on Julie Andrews, his co-star in Camelot) Every man I know who knows her is a little bit in love with her.

I almost replaced Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball (1965). This was before Sean played Bond. My friend, the Irish producer, Kevin McClory, wanted me. Kevin worked for Michael Todd on Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and I was impressed with his Irish rebelliousness. We Welsh have that, too, but not quite like the Irish who transfuse it into their blood on the same day they are born. McClory promised Hitchcock would direct and I had great hopes for the project. It fell through, of course - and later Kevin made a bloody fortune, when Sean was Bond. I wonder sometimes how it might all have turned out. Fleming was big on me for the role. Stewart Granger was next in line.

I`m a reader, you know. I was corrupted by Faust. And Shakespeare. And Proust. And Hemingway. But mostly I was corrupted by Dylan Thomas. Most people see me as a rake, womanizer, boozer and purchaser of large baubles. I`m all those things depending on the prism and the light. But mostly I`m a reader. Give me Agatha Christie for an hour and I`m happy as a clam. The house in Celigny some day will cave in under its own weight from the books. I hope I`m there when it does. One hundred six years old. Investigating the newest thriller from Le Carré or a new play from Tennessee Williams.

I played a sex-drenched doctor in The Bramble Bush (1960). It was the worst picture I ever made, if you don`t count Ice Palace (1960). That one was based upon a very weak novel by Edna Ferber. Both pictures for Warner Brothers. Jack L. Warner told the press I had no sex appeal. Then Elizabeth came along. All changed after that. Suddenly, Eddie Fisher didn`t have sex appeal. And I did. It`s a crazy world for a Welsh coal miner`s son born in November 1925.

Albert Finney is the greatest actor in the world. Then Peter O`Toole. Brando. Olivier and Gielgud belong to another time and place. They`re immortal, but remote from the rest of us. Sean Connery is vastly underrated. I would like to do a play with Michael Caine, whom I respect. I like Alan Bates. Frank Finlay is a hard man to follow in the second act. Unbeatable self-discipline.

I knew all epics are crap but I felt this one could be different. How could I have been so wrong? (on Alexander the Great (1956))

All great art comes from people who are either ugly or have a terrible inferiority complex. I know no one who is beautiful and produces art.

Certainly most movie executives were making love to the starlets. But then, so were most of us actors.

My father considered that anyone who went to chapel and didn`t drink alcohol was not to be tolerated. I grew up in that belief.

How strange are the tricks of memory, which, often hazy as a dream about the most important events of a man`s life, religiously preserve the merest trifles.

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

An actor is something less than a man, while an actress is something more than a woman.

(on Elizabeth Taylor) I love her, not for her breasts, her buttocks or her knees but for her mind. It is inscrutable. She is like a poem.

I believe in this film absolutely. It is a kick against the system. - On Staircase (1969)

All I wanted to do was to live, pick up a new Jag, and act at the Old Vic.

I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it`s rather an attractive image.

Travelers are like poets. They are mostly an angry race.

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

Richard Burton is now my epitaph, my cross, my title, my image. I have achieved a kind of diabolical fame. It has nothing to do with my talents as an actor. That counts for little now. I am the diabolically famous Richard Burton.

The Welsh are all actors. It`s only the bad ones who become professional.

(On Elizabeth Taylor): "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."

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

(On Elizabeth Taylor): "At thirty-four she is an extremely beautiful woman, lavishly endowed by nature with a few flaws in the masterpiece: She has an insipid double chin, her legs are too short and she has a slight potbelly. She has a wonderful bosom, though."

(on Sophia Loren) She is as beautiful as an erotic dream. Tall and extremely large bosomed. Tremendously long legs. They go up to her shoulders, practically. Beautiful brown eyes, set in a marvelously vulpine, almost satanic, face.

When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn`t know how to play them when I was drunk.

(About Elizabeth Taylor): "Elizabeth has great worries about becoming a cripple because her feet sometimes have no feeling in them. She asked if I would stop loving her if she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. I told her that I didn`t care if her legs, bum and bosoms fell off and her teeth turned yellow. And she went bald. I love that woman so much sometimes that I cannot believe my luck. She has given me so much."

They lard their lean books with the fat of others work.

I`ve played the lot: a homosexual, a sadistic gangster, kings, princes, a saint, the lot. All that`s left is a Carry On film. My last ambition.

This diamond has so many carats it`s almost a turnip.

The only thing in life is language. Not love. Not anything else.

I was up to, I`m told, because, of course, you don`t remember if you drink that much, about two-and-a-half to three bottles of hard liquor a day. Fascinating idea, of course, drink on that scale. It`s rather nice to have gone through it and to have survived. (1974)

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.

If I had his talent, I`d drop Shakespeare tomorrow. - On Frankie Howerd

(on Julie Andrews, his co-star in Camelot) Every man I know who knows her is a little bit in love with her.

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

(On adultery, in 1963): "The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore."

(About his love of reading): "Home is where the books are."

Cable from Laurence Olivier to Richard Burton at the height of the Cleopatra (1963) scandal: "Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?" Burton replied: "Both."

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

The most astonishingly self-contained, pulchritudinous, remote, removed, inaccessible woman I had ever seen. - On Elizabeth Taylor

When asked why he refused to see his performance in Cleopatra (1963): "Well, I don`t want to kill myself."

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

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.

(About being hired to play Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra (1963)): "Well, I suppose I must don a breastplate once more to play opposite Miss Tits."

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

And I`m too old. I`m now thirty-six. And I look about 5` 2. I`m 5` 10" but I look smaller. It`s because I`m so wide or my head`s too big or something." (1962)

Perhaps most actors are latent homosexuals and we cover it with drink. I was once a homosexual, but it didn`t work.

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

I still smoke too much. I think it gives my voice an edge. (1984)