Michael Caine Quotes

Not that I am hugely working class, but in the U.K. I'm always perceived, casting-wise, as being working class.

Most people were annoyed with my voice, I think, because I'm working-class, and that doesn't sound quite right on Radio 4.

I've had tweets questioning whether I really did go to university because surely I would have lost my accent if I did; a letter suggesting, very politely, that I get correction therapy; and an email saying I should get back to my council estate and leave the serious work to the clever folk.

I think people tend to underestimate you when you have a Northern accent, for instance if you have to talk to the CEO of an international company. But then when I'm talking to someone in a factory, it's just like being with my mum's mates.

I think Britain is a bit class-ridden. People tend to be judged by how rounded their vowels are.

I didn't know we'd been tagged as posh. I went to a state school in London, so maybe people think I have a posh voice and that's where it comes from?

Categorizing people economically and hating them because you think they're this way is a prejudice.

Discounting the ineffably repetitive homophobic barbs that I receive most days, Twitter trolls' most common gripe against me appears to be that I am 'posh.' Contrary to their unshakeable view, I was not born into the upstairs world.

I reckoned my accent and class would count against me; I didn't see actresses as being working-class.

There is the idea that there's a section of society, these working-class tradesmen, are driving around and they all think the same. Everybody who has tools in their vehicle have all the exact same thoughts: it's incredibly patronising isn't it?

People are not saints just because they haven't got much money or education.

In the 'Garnethill' trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.

On my best day, I cannot do Scottish people. I don't even believe that's a real accent, to be honest with you. I think they probably sound like us when they're in the house. It's how they keep people away from them.

Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be?

I was always told at school I was posh, then I came to London, and here I'm told I have a country accent.

I'm not from the working class. I'm from the criminal class.

I was always curious about the anxiety a person would feel when you open your mouth and you have an accent. You could have a Ph.D. or be a lawyer, but as soon as you say something, you may be diminished in the eyes of someone else.

All the people I know have been conditioned by snobbery.

Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent.

With a few notable exceptions, literary fiction in the U.K. is dominated by an upper and upper middle-class clique who usually have a tin ear for the demotic and who portray working-class characters with, at best, a benevolent condescension.

England is strictly class-based. What's surprising is how many films are still made with a load of people in silly frocks running around gardens and talking in middle-class accents.

There is no such thing as a black middle class.

People assume I'm posh because I'm one of the acting dames. I grew up in Tottenham and didn't used to speak like I do now.

People are very ready to criticize other people's accents. There's no correlation between accents and intelligence or accents and criminality, but people do make judgments.

When I started in the profession, there were very visible actors who were Scottish, Welsh, or regional. Lots of working-class-hero leading actors; it was not fashionable to sound posh. Now, I'm middle-aged; it's fashionable to sound posh if you are the generation behind me.