Richard Burton Quotes

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

'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.

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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