Top 162 Quotes & Sayings by Michael Douglas

When you're making pictures out of heartfelt passion, it hurts when someone calls them a calculated business move.

Every empire eventually falls.

I don't wish ill will on anybody.

When you are a celebrity, nothing remains secret for very long.

I went into rehab to save my marriage, but I wound up saving myself.

I'm impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work.

If your work isn't exciting, doesn't stir the emotions, where's the challenge? Where's the progress if you always play it safe?

I don't know about Brad Pitt leaving that beautiful woman to go hold orphans for Angelina. I mean how long is that going to last?

The message from national security experts and citizens around the world is clear: The only way to eliminate the global nuclear danger is to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

My dad was a movie star. Having that name was good and bad. People think it's a silver spoon. It's not.

I've always tried to kind of stretch my wings as an actor and do things that are different.

I believe there is a spirit within us, which we nurture based upon our efforts and what we bring to the world. But it doesn't come from the outside; it comes from the inside.

I met Michael Milken for the first time with Oliver Stone at the Drexel Burnham offices in Los Angeles.

I grew up on the East Coast and was going to go to an Ivy League School, but at the last minute I decided to be a hippy. It was the protest movements on the war, peace movements were going on at our university. It was a fantastic time.

Control is what gives you privacy.

Everything's so repressive now - it's the No generation. You can't do anything, you can't eat anything, you have to abstain.

I'm a risk-taker. Most of my career has not been a joyful experience, but it has been challenging. I like the dangers.

Directors have so much else to do besides tell actors what to do. There are so many issues and problems.

I don't ever do those kind of epic, huge, green-screen movies.

There is something about seeing rhinos and lions running free that excites you. It's not that you feel afraid; it's more like you're liberated by seeing them.

The one thing that men and women have in common - they both like the company of men.

Retiring gives the impression that you're relieved that your job is over.

I come from a tough stock.

Learning patience was not an easy lesson.

The studios basically, besides developing some material, their strength is distribution. Distribution in any other business is a cost that you incur. You know, in a trucking business, you eat it. In a film business, distribution is a profit center.

I don't smile a lot in my pictures. I'm always so... grim.

The arts are a celebration of life.

Actors, I have to say, most of the time, they elevate things; they don't screw things up most of the time.

In 'Wall Street,' Charlie Sheen carried that movie.

Serious is when they tell you, 'You've got cancer.' Cancer is serious, but then the rest of it is not.

I guess there are some women who like older men, but it's a smaller group.

Most of the stories I read are about my Hollywood pedigree.

Do you know what absolute happiness is? For me, it is to wake up my kids in the morning - these little pieces of innocence - to wake them and find they're so happy to see me! It is unequivocal love, no question about it.

The so-called 'last golden age,' in the 1970s, most of those movies were independent films.

With 'Black Rain,' I spent a lot of time with homicide detectives, and I spent a lot of time with different brokers on 'Wall Street.' It helps get the rhythm of the piece and the tone, and how overplayed or underplayed it might be. That's also the magic of movies: You get to hang out and live these different lives.

When I go on a holiday to a tropical place, I'll spray tan before I go.

A lot of actors get concerned about their own image, even going so far as to rewrite a movie to best serve that image. All I want to do is be in good movies.

It's difficult for me to meet women because my crowd is much older. I know that for some of the young women I do meet, a relationship with me can be envisioned as a benefit to their career.

My movies are usually about stripping off the makeup, getting down to the skeleton.

Actresses have more fear of being disliked. I, on the other hand, revel in it.

People are goofy about the movie business, so you end up counting on friends you knew before you were successful. It is harder to make new friends because you are a little more cautious.

Women are now very comfortable to have babies into their late 30s. You can be a father in your 50s. I'm not saying it's for everybody, and I think people have to get their own life secure before they take on the responsibility of a partner and children.

For a long time, I can't say I was one who really enjoyed acting. I was always censoring it, or editing it, or analyzing it, rather than just going with it.

Cancer didn't bring me to my knees, it brought me to my feet.

Sometimes we spend more efforts with people that are strangers in terms of making an impression than the person that's closest to us. And you just gotta remember not to take for granted that person that's closest to you.

Like a lovely orchid, or anything else that's nurtured, marriage prospers and grows, but if it's ignored, it withers.

'Wall Street' was a very important movie for me in terms of my career. I won an Oscar, and then the film 'Fatal Attraction' came right after it.

I enjoy provocative things that are questionable.

Liberace was one of the biggest stars in America. He was a kind of a phenomenon.

I had a great stepfather.

Directing talent is very nebulous. You know, it's not in front of you like an actor's performance.

There's nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life.

The Cold War's end pushed disarmament down most leaders' agendas. It's a sophisticated issue, which I think is one reason why it is not so hands-on to many people. It's not visceral. It's not like a starving child.

The people who work in Wall Street still look up to Gordon Gekko. He's sort of a guru.

Of course I feel blessed that I have a wife that is 25 years younger.

If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is.

For an actor, it's great fun to play one of these hungry white sharks. Audiences love to hate them.

I don't know if likeable, pleasant characters have enough conflict for me to want to do them. I admire those people, but I've never been that kind of screen presence who can do nothing. I need to do something.

'Five Easy Pieces,' 'Easy Rider' - those are indie pictures; those were not studio pictures. They had relationships with studio distribution, but they were indies.

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.