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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.

Laurence Olivier

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Laurence Olivier
Age: 82 †
Born: 1907
Born: May 22
Died: 1989
Died: July 11
Actor
Character Actor
Director
Dramaturge
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Politician
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Dorking
Surrey
Baron Olivier of Brighton
The Lord Olivier
Great
Visible
Even
Sign
Believe
Theatre
Theater
City
Probable
Cities
Outward
Small
Inward
Culture
Village

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Work is life for me, it is the only point of life - and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.
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If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.
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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.
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No matter how well you perform, there's always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it's lousy.
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You think you're an artist prove it
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If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.
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Autograph-hunting is the most unattractive manifestation of sex-starved curiosity.
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In spite of a heavy disguise, a few days' growth on my face, dark glasses, a beret and one of William's jackets that fitted me not at all, as I emerged from a hotel in Lecce, a young fisherman pointed me out to his friends and said Lavrenche Olivaire. It was not all that amazing if you're not known in Italy, you're not known anywhere.
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Have a very good reason for everything you do.
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[May 1958, on playing Macbeth at age 30 and age 48] When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.
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Don't be afraid to be outrageous the critics will shoot you down anyway.
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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.
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Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor.
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There is a spirit in us that makes our brass to blare and our cymbals crash-all, of course, supported by the practicalities of trained lung power, throat, heart, guts.
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We used to have actresses trying to become stars now we have stars trying to become actresses.
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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.
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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.
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Without acting, I cannot breathe.
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We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.
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Of all the things I've done in life, directing a motion picture is the most beautiful. It's the most exciting and the nearest than an interpretive craftsman, such as an actor can possibly get to being a creator.
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