James Cagney Quotes

#1. I never had the slightest difficulty with a fellow actor. Not until One, Two, Three. In that picture, Horst Buchholz tried all sorts of scene-stealing didoes. I came close to knocking him on his ass.

James Cagney

#2. Perhaps people, and kids especially, are spoiled today, because all the kids today have cars, it seems. When I was young you were lucky to have a bike.

James Cagney

#3. I hate the word superstar". I have never been able to think in those terms. They are overstatements. You don't hear them speak of Shakespeare as a superpoet. You don't hear them call Michelangelo a superpainter. They only apply the word to this mundane market

James Cagney

#4. Absorption in things other than self is the secret of a happy life.

James Cagney

#5. Find your mark, look the other fellow in the eye, and tell the truth.

James Cagney

#6. I never said, 'MMMmmm, you dirty rat!

James Cagney

#7. Learn your lines ... plant your feet ... look the other actor in the eye ... say the words ... mean them.

James Cagney

#8. The Postman Always RingsTwice.

James Cagney

#9. My father was totally Irish, and so I went to Ireland once. I found it to be very much like New York, for it was a beautiful country, and both the women and men were good-looking.

James Cagney

#10. Though I soon became typecast in Hollywood as a gangster and hoodlum, I was originally a dancer, an Irish hoofer, trained in vaudeville tap dance. I always leapt at the opportunity to dance in films later on.

James Cagney

#11. You dirty, double-crossing rat.

James Cagney

#12. I'm sick of carrying guns and beating up women.

James Cagney

#13. My childhood was surrounded by trouble, illness, and my dad's alcoholism, but as I said, we just didn't have the time to be impressed by all those misfortunes. I have an idea that the Irish possess a built-in don't-give-a-damn that helps them through all the stress.

James Cagney

#14. You know, the period of World War I and the Roaring Twenties were really just about the same as today. You worked, and you made a living if you could, and you tired to make the best of things. For an actor or a dancer, it was no different then than today. It was a struggle.

James Cagney

#15. Outside of my family, the prime concern of my life has been nature and its order, and how we have been savagely altering that order.

James Cagney

#16. You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them ... I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can.

James Cagney

#17. There's not much to say about acting but this. Never settle back on your heels. Never relax. If you relax, the audience relaxes. And always mean everything you say.

James Cagney

#18. You dirty rat...

James Cagney

#19. I got a part as a chorus girl in a show called Every Sailor and I had fun doing it. Mother didn't really approve of it, through.

James Cagney

#20. Once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.

James Cagney