Michael Caine Quotes

Hosting the Oscars is pretty much the scariest thing you can do. To me, this is right up there with bungee jumping!

Maybe I'll give Broadway a try. But you know what would be great? Hosting the Oscars. I promise you, that would be a show no one forgot.

I'm an introvert at heart... And show business - even though I've loved it so much - has always been hard for me.

It took forever for me to get work because I was a political comic, and now it's become good business, and God knows how long that'll last. You have to do it night after night after night to kind of make it. I still find myself on 'Piers Morgan' or on some show and I think, 'I hope this is funny.'

The two moments that I felt the most nervous in my entire life were when I first had reading rehearsal for 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra' and when I was at the Academy Awards ceremony.

Stand up is the most stressful, and hosting and presenting a show has its own stresses, because you've got an audience which you've got to entertain as well as an audience at home.

I'd always wanted to be on Broadway one day, but it seemed like a dream that might be unattainable. This business has a lot of ups and downs and I learned that pretty quickly.

Maybe I just wasn't a show-biz type. I didn't miss performing at all.

I was embarrassed that I even wanted to become an actress because coming from L.A., with two older sisters in the business and a mom who had been a ballet dancer, it was such a cliche.

Now, there is no business like show business, and there is no publicity like word of mouth. What is word of mouth, you may ask? Well, word of mouth is gold to Hollywood bigwigs, and it equates to box office bonanzas and hit TV shows.

A lot of people say I'd miss show business if I quit. I'd miss some of it. Now it's the only life I know.

The red carpet is really the only thing that makes me nervous.

I didn't get here for my acting... but I love show business.

Hosting the Oscars is much like making love to a woman. It's something I only get to do when Billy Crystal is out of town.

Like everybody in show business, you think you're going to wake up one day, and it's all going to be taken away from you. I think we all share an insecurity in that way, everybody in show business - the ones I talk to, anyway.

I work in show business - there's nothing that shocks me anymore!

It's always nerve-wracking when you're hosting 'Saturday Night Live.' You either sink or swim.

I didn't plan on going into show business. Show business picked me. And it's been fun. One of the best things about being in show business is people think they know me, and they feel like they grew up with me.

There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

It's the most unglamourous glamour business in the world.

The Oscars is a sport. There's the excitement of watching something live, as it happens.

Performing doesn't turn me on. It's an egomaniac business, filled with prima donnas - including this one.

I secretly nurtured the idea of being in show business but was always terrified of it. I had every fear you could possibly imagine associated with performing.

I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win. I'd be doing Oscar predictions months ahead of time, and not only for the Oscars, for the Grammys. This is just what excited me as a kid.

The excitement does not change. After 40 years in the business, I still find the show to be a magical moment - the performance anxiety, the litmus test.