Steve McQueen Quotes & Sayings

#1. Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live,

#2. I want people to do what they want to do because when they feel comfortable it seems to translate better on screen. It is when you put people in a straitjacket that it doesn't seem to translate very well at all. The individuals I work with are usually people I know.

Steve McQueen

#3. Stardom equals financial success and financial success equals security. I've spent too much of my life feeling insecure. I still have nightmares about being poor, of everything I own just vanishing away. Stardom means that can't happen.

Steve McQueen

#4. The best thing about making films is the time spent making them. When I see works that I've made, I always think what a great time I had making them. The films remind me of that time.

Steve McQueen

#5. Every time I start thinking the world is all bad, then I start seeing people out there having a good time on motorcycles. It makes me take another look.

Steve McQueen

#6. The person is being confrontational.

Steve McQueen

#7. Sometimes you have to say goodbye to the things you know and hello to the things you dont.

Steve McQueen

#8. Ill never be as good an actor as I want to be ... but I'll be good.

Steve McQueen

#9. Racing is life. Everything else is just waiting.

Steve McQueen

#10. I'm not a great actor - let's face it. I don't have a great deal of scope. There are certain things I can do, but when I'm bad, I stink. There's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think I'm good. I'm not all that good.

Steve McQueen

#11. I live for myself and answer to nobody

Steve McQueen

#12. There is no right or wrong angle for something. The idea of putting the camera in an unfamiliar position is simply to do with film language. Sometimes it is spectacular, sometimes it is ugly, sometimes it is uninteresting.

Steve McQueen

#13. Nobody trusts anyone, or why did they put tilt on a pinball machine ...

Steve McQueen

#14. I think as an actor, you're more like a dancer, and you have to use your body. I don't understand all these questions about nudity. It's a nonsense. He's an actor, an artist, so get on with it.

Steve McQueen

#15. Sometimes you have to bend with the breeze or you break.

Steve McQueen

#16. I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.

Steve McQueen

#17. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.

Steve McQueen

#18. I worked hard, and if you work hard you get the goodies.

Steve McQueen

#19. When I walk out into the street or go to the toilet, I don't think of myself as being black. Of course, other people think of me as black when I walk into a pub. Obviously being black is a part of me.

Steve McQueen

#20. People try to contain things by putting them into categories. I don't.

Steve McQueen

#21. I find it difficult to breathe when l'm in the space. There seems to be no oxygen. I want to put people into a situation where they're sensitive to themselves watching the piece.

Steve McQueen

#22. I liked being in the Marines. They gave me discipline I could live with. By the time I got out, I was able to cope with things on a more realistic level.

Steve McQueen

#23. When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it.

Steve McQueen

#24. I'm not sure that acting is something for a grown man to be doing.

Steve McQueen

#25. When I did 'The Great Escape,' I kept thinking, 'If they were making a movie of my life, that's what they'd call it - the great escape.'

Steve McQueen

#26. I believe in me. I'm a little screwed up, but I'm beautiful

Steve McQueen

#27. When a horse learns to buy martinis, I'll learn to like horses.

Steve McQueen

#28. I always feel I'm an amateur. I don't most of the time know what I'm doing.

Steve McQueen

#29. One of the things that make motorcycling so great is because it never fails to give you a feeling of freedom and adventure.

Steve McQueen

#30. You see, I don't believe in that grabbin' and grabbin' and stuffin yourself and not givin' anythin' or puttin' it back.

Steve McQueen

#31. I really don't like to act. At the beginning, back in '51, I had to force myself to stick with it. I was real uncomfortable, real uncomfortable.

Steve McQueen

#32. The camera movement should be like a cat jumping onto a table - with just enough amount of effort and that's it. That's enough.

Steve McQueen

#33. I have difficulty putting words in peoples' mouths. The best dialogue is very, very thin dialogue; you let people improvise and then basically you record what they've improvised and then write it down.

Steve McQueen