Michael Douglas quotes

Born
September 25, 1944, New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.

Occupation
Actor.

Michael Douglas is an American actor.

Movies
Ant-Man (2015)
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Traffic (2000)

Cancer has shown me what family is. It showed me a love that I never knew really existed.
– Michael Douglas

During my first marriage, my career was the most important thing in my life.
– Michael Douglas

Every empire eventually falls.
– Michael Douglas

There’s nothing like a family crisis, especially a divorce, to force a person to re-evaluate his life.
– Michael Douglas

I have some idea of the pressure of finding your own identity with a famous father.
– Michael Douglas

I’m impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work.
– Michael Douglas

I’ve always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.
– Michael Douglas

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

I never really look at my movies.
– Michael Douglas

I don’t wish ill will on anybody.
– Michael Douglas

Retiring gives the impression that you’re relieved that your job is over.
– Michael Douglas

I don’t smile a lot in my pictures. I’m always so… grim.
– Michael Douglas

Sometimes art imitates life.
– Michael Douglas

I tell my kids they are going to live to over 100.
– Michael Douglas

I haven’t played a lot of nice guys.
– Michael Douglas

I love kids, and I love having had this second chance to have a family.
– Michael Douglas

I’m an optimistic guy.
– Michael Douglas

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.
– Michael Douglas

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?
– Michael Douglas

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

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.
– Michael Douglas

I’ve just kind of been used to carrying movies. I look back and I’m just used to being in every single scene in a lot of pictures.
– Michael Douglas

Capitalism is part of our system, but it’s not for the faint of heart.
– Michael Douglas

I was there the night John Lennon was shot, three blocks away. It left a lasting impression on me.
– Michael Douglas

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

I do think of myself as a bit of a loner, a bit of an independent. I’m one of those people who, when they’re sick, like to curl up and remove myself. I don’t like a lot of people around. There is nothing you can do to help.
– Michael Douglas

My marriage and my families come certainly before my career.
– Michael Douglas

Liberace was a lovely guy.
– Michael Douglas

Serious is when they tell you, ‘You’ve got cancer.’ Cancer is serious, but then the rest of it is not.
– Michael Douglas

Like my father, like most actors, I was a pretty ambitious guy.
– Michael Douglas

I don’t look good in tights. I know that.
– Michael Douglas

To me, Bermuda is a real family spot.
– Michael Douglas

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.
– Michael Douglas

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

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.
– Michael Douglas

I have nothing against her, and in fact I’m very fond of my first wife. But we should have ended that marriage eight or 10 years earlier.
– Michael Douglas

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.
– Michael Douglas

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.
– Michael Douglas

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

Actors, I have to say, most of the time, they elevate things; they don’t screw things up most of the time.
– Michael Douglas

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.
– Michael Douglas

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.
– Michael Douglas

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

Learning patience was not an easy lesson.
– Michael Douglas