Richard Burton Quotes (28 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Famous Richard Burton Quotes

“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.”

Richard Burton

“The Welsh are all actors. It's only the bad ones who become professional.”

Richard Burton

In The Little Book of Wales http://books.google.com/books?id=FLU7AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT56, The History Press, 1 May 2013, p. 56

“Throughout his life he would quote and write in his Notebooks chunks of John Donne, Edward Jones, John Betjeman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Dunbar, Shakespeare and his greatest read Dylan Thomas. Dylan became his hero. Sweetly, their paths would later cross and a good friendship would grow.”

Richard Burton

Biography, in "Life: Richard Burton"

“You reach the top of the heap, but it's a circle, and you slip on the down side; maybe for years. You get scared. He said then he thought he was coming out of a slump.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton, 58, is Dead; Rakish Stage and Screen Star"

“She can do everything…there’s nothing she can’t do…she looks after me so well. Thank God I’ve found her.”

Richard Burton

About Sally Hay whom he married in 1983, in “Life: Richard Burton”

“When I played drunks I had to remain sober because I didn't know how to play them when I was drunk.”

Richard Burton

In Mark Pollman Bottled Wisdom: Over 1,000 Spirited Quotations & Anecdotes http://books.google.com/books?id=fM3CO-2nW7sC&pg=PA146, Wildstone Media, 1 January 1998, p. 146,

Richard Burton Quotes about life

“She [Elizabeth Taylor] never reads a book, at least not more than a couple of pages at a time… I have always been a heavy drinker but now as a result of this half-life we've been leading I am drinking twice as much. The upshot will be that I'll die of drink while she'll go blithely on in her half-world.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The Love Letters. How drinking cocooned them from pressure of fame. Without it, they couldn't even make love."

“I stayed in bed all day yesterday, for instance, while she [Elizabeth Taylor] spent the entire day until well after midnight sitting in the main room, gossiping, etc. And, of course, inevitably sipping away at the drinks… What is more frightening is that she has become bored with everything in life.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The Love Letters. How drinking cocooned them from pressure of fame. Without it, they couldn't even make love."

“If I had a chance for another life, I would certainly choose a better complexion… 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. When he reached the age of 50, after a five-year career slump. I can only say with Edith Piaf, 'Je ne regrette rien.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton, 58, is Dead; Rakish Stage and Screen Star"

Richard Burton Quotes about love

“Dear Long-wayaway-one,' very antisocial I am when I don't booze. And no fun when you're not around… Do you love me? Do you want to be a lazy Jane and never work again? Once I stopped boozing I have enjoyed not working. But we can't do it though.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The Love Letters. How drinking cocooned them from pressure of fame. Without it, they couldn't even make love."

“I wanted that diamond because it is incomparably lovely. And it should be on the loveliest woman [Elizabeth Taylor] in the world.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The Love Letters. How drinking cocooned them from pressure of fame. Without it, they couldn't even make love."
From then on, the stone came to be known as the 'Taylor-Burton diamond'

“Monogamy is absolutely imperative. The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore. Suppose you make love to an exciting woman other than your wife, it can’t remain enough to go bed with her there must be something else, something more than the absolute compulsion of the body. But if there is something more, it will eventually destroy either you or your marriage.”

Richard Burton

In James Robert Parish The Hollywood Book of Breakups http://books.google.com/books?id=gSh2HyQ8OsQC&pg=PT348, John Wiley & Sons, 20-Dec-2010, p. 348

“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.”

Richard Burton

In Katharine Viner The Guardian Year 2006 http://books.google.com/books?id=FqEWAQAAIAAJ, Random House, 2007, p. 287

Richard Burton Quotes

“This diamond has so many carats it's almost a turnip.”

Richard Burton

In Olivia St. Claire Sex Devotional: 365 Days of Passion, Positions, and Pure Pleasure http://books.google.com/books?id=QMGeucMkKrAC&pg=PA309The, Adams Media, 18 November 2009, p. 309
The diamond weighing 69.4 carats was gifted by Burton to Elizabeth Taylor on her fortieth birthday, which she later sold after her divorce for $5 million to fund a hospital in Botswana.

“It's difficult for me to know where to start with rugby. I come from a fanatically rugby-conscious Welsh miner's family, know so much about it, have read so much about it, have heard with delight so many massive lies and stupendous exaggerations about it and have contributed my own fair share, and five of my six brothers played it, one with some distinction… it's difficu1t for me to know where to start so I’ll begin with the end. The last shall be first, as it is said, so I'll tell you about the last match I ever played in…I had played the game representatively from the age of ten until those who employed me in my profession, which is that of actor, insisted that I was a bad insurance risk against certain dread teams in dead-end valleys who would have little respect, no respect, or outright disrespect for what I was pleased to call my face. What if I were unfortunate enough to be on the deck in the middle of a loose maul…they murmured in dollar accents?”

Richard Burton

In Richard Burton’s Last Match From Take the Ball and Run – A Rugby Anthology by Godfrey Smith http://wesclark.com/rrr/burton.html, Wesclark, 1953.

Age , Family , Game , Reading

“If you're a bad actor, you don't get hired. But if you're a bad doctor, you can still practice medicine.”

Richard Burton

In Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The Love Letters. How drinking cocooned them from pressure of fame. Without it, they couldn't even make love http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1284504/Richard-Burton-Elizabeth-Taylor-The-Love-Letters-How-drinking-cocooned-pressure-fame-Without-make-love.html, Mail Online, 7 June 2010

“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.”

Richard Burton

Interview in 1963 quoted In Robert Andrews The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations http://books.google.com/books?id=VK0vR4fsaigC&pg=PT250, Penguin UK, 30 October 2003, p. 259

“If you're going to make rubbish, be the best rubbish in it.”

Richard Burton

In Gene N Landrum Paranoia & Power: Fear & Fame of Entertainment Icons http://books.google.com/books?id=x3uHJsk1DuwC&pg=PA225, Morgan James Publishing, 1 November 2007, p. 225

“Although I like to be thought of as a tough rugby-playing Welsh miner's son, able to take on the world, the reality is that this image is just superficial. I am the reverse of what people think.”

Richard Burton

In Richard Burton Biography, IMDb

People , World , Thinking , Reality

“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.”

Richard Burton

In Playboy Interviews http://books.google.com/books?id=rfoZAAAAYAAJ, Playboy Press, 1967, p. 100

Alcohol , Drink

“I have always felt that the camera hasn't liked me. I'm a stage animal. I have to be big and loud, and the camera needs you to be small and naturalistic and subtle; much more naturalistic. I'm as subtle as a buffalo stampede.”

Richard Burton

In Richard Burton Biography http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000009/bio, IMDb

Animals

“I'm afraid we are temporarily out in the cold, and fallen stars. What is remarkable is that we have stayed up there for so long.”

Richard Burton

In "Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: The Love Letters. How drinking cocooned them from pressure of fame. Without it, they couldn't even make love."
The reason for this was the low-budget movies made by new kids on the block that were making money.

Star

“Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?”

Richard Burton

Burton's reply was, "Both."
Olivier, on the set of Cleopatra, in "Burton, Richard"

Making love , Heart

“A brimming pool running disturbingly deep…His voice is urgent and keen… He turned interested speculation into awe as soon as he started to speak.”

Richard Burton

Kenneth Tynan of British theatre, in “Life: Richard Burton”

“Money was nice but it was not everything to the actor whose greatest joys were words, words, and words.”

Richard Burton

Biography, in "Life: Richard Burton"

Money , Joy

“He was marvellous at rehearsals. There was the true theatrical instinct. You only had to indicate - scarcely even that.”

Richard Burton

Sir John Gielgud, on his acting ability in Hamlet quoted in Riachard Burton (1925-1984), Place :Pontrhydfen:Wales http://www.welshwales.co.uk/burton.htm, Welshwales.com

“He should have been in the same rank as Laurence Olivier, but he was very wild and had a scandal around him all the time and I think in theater circles that would not be approved of.”

Richard Burton

Sir John Gielgud, in “Richard Burton, 58, is Dead; Rakish Stage and Screen Star”

Thinking , Time

“The magnificent baritone was not merely a voice. It was an orchestra of enormous range and power, its graceful sound seemed to linger on for millions who had heard it on film and stage. Homer must have known someone very much like Richard Burton.”

Richard Burton

Gerald Clarke, in Show Business: The Mellifluous Prince of Disorder http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954366,00.html, 20 August 1984