Laurence Olivier Quotes

Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.

I can't act. I can't lie.

Since I wasn't able to leave a succession of beautiful lies, I want to leave the smidgen of truth that the falsehood of everything lets us suppose we can tell.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

Well, you know what they say in Hollywood - the most important thing is being sincere, even if you have to fake it.

I get paid to lie to people as an actor. Country music is the one area that I don't lie. I tell the truth.

I'm an actor, but I am an awful liar.

People assume actors are born liars, but I'd argue the actor's job is to tell the truth. And I've realised I'm not a good liar.

People are starved for the truth, and when something comes along that even looks like the truth, people will latch onto it because everything's so false.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Even though I'm an actor, I'm a very bad liar.

Acting means nothing unless it's truth. And honesty.

No lie can live forever.

What is acting but lying and what is good lying but convincing lying?

The more you act the further you get away from the truth.

Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. . . A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure

Acting is all about being truthful. I'm really bad at lying. I'm one of the worst liars I know.

Man can certainly keep on lying (and does so), but he cannot make truth falsehood.

I'll tell you something that's completely true - you can, as a man, obtain everything you want with the truth. If you lie, first of all you've got to be a very good lying actor, which is tres difficile. And it's going to give you poison inside the body.

One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.

To fake it is to stand guard over emptiness.

The false is nothing but an imitation of the true.

I lied to everybody. I lie very well, being an actress, naturally.

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.

You can tell when someone is putting on a role. If someone really believes in what they're saying, it's quite hard to find cracks.