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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
Believe
Theatre
Theater
City
Probable
Cities
Outward
Small
Inward
Culture
Village
Great
Visible
Even
Sign

More quotes by Laurence Olivier

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My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.
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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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If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.
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The art of persuasion. The actor persuades himself, first, and through himself, the audience.
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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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Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.
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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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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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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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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.
Laurence Olivier
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You think you're an artist prove it
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Autograph-hunting is the most unattractive manifestation of sex-starved curiosity.
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I'm rather bored by the subject - meaning me. It's a sort of a yoke, but at times you know, a yoke is a kind of comfort. And it's always there.
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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.
Laurence Olivier
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Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor.
Laurence Olivier
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Have a very good reason for everything you do.
Laurence Olivier
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What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?
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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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Don't be afraid to be outrageous the critics will shoot you down anyway.
Laurence Olivier