Top 40 Cagney Quotes
#1. I want people to say at the end of my day, you know, like I used to say about Sidney Poitier and James Cagney and Joan Crawford and Red Skelton and those guys and Bill Cosby. They did quality and substance. You always remember them.
Bernie Mac
#2. A James Cagney love scene is one where he lets the other guy live.
Bob Hope
#3. But I've always believed that Christine Cagney shouldn't be played past a certain age.
Sharon Gless
#4. Tina Fey and I have 15 things in development: 'Laverne and Shirley', 'Starsky and Hutch 3', 'Cagney and Lacey', 'Wonder Twins Activate From Two Hot Broads', 'Little House on the Prairie: The Musical: The Movie'.
Amy Poehler
#5. Movies were invented for Jimmy Cagney, and he was invented for the movies. A perfect match.
Clint Eastwood
#6. I apologize, Miss Dylan.' Cagney said. 'During the night, all of my lord's stupidity rushes to his head.
K.M. Shea
#7. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family, and I think they force you to watch every James Cagney movie.
Jimmy Fallon
#8. Well what do you do with a character like Christine Cagney and you tell her she can't have things?
Sharon Gless
#9. There's a trend toward anti-heroes now, and I think it goes back to guys like Bogart and Cagney. They seemed to have no compassion, and they were always alone.
Jim Brown
#10. Voices are like fingerprints, from Cagney to Bogart. They never lost it. My voice is instrumental in categorizing me.
Sylvester Stallone
#11. I used to watch 'Cagney & Lacey' with my mum back in the day. I can't remember any of their storylines, but I remember really knowing these two friends like I would know real people.
Darren Boyd
#12. When I was growing up, I was obsessed with 'Cagney and Lacey.'
Tamsin Greig
#13. When I was a kid going to the movies, we'd go because Bogart was in the movie, or Cagney, or John Wayne. We didn't know what the story was about or anything.
Dennis Farina
#14. Before 'Cagney and Lacey,' we didn't follow officers home to find out what they did when they took their badges off and emptied their guns. So the idea that these women also had lives outside of work was really interesting to play.
Tyne Daly
#15. My favorite actor who played villains - who could play anything, really - was Jimmy Cagney.
Malcolm McDowell
#16. Follow the wisdom of the great actor, James Cagney, you hit your mark, you look the other guy in the eye, and you tell the truth.
Larry Merchant
#17. James Cagney, Steve McQueen, I loved all those guys. I grew up loving the movies but had no desire to be in them.
Mark Wahlberg
#18. In the movies, Bette Davis lights two cigarettes and hands the second one to James Cagney. It was just so glamorous and romantic.
Loni Anderson
#19. The old movie stars like Bogart, James Cagney, Jimmy Stewart, they weren't this gorgeous, striking six-foot man who's rippled with muscles.
Jack Huston
#20. Yeah, I've always been accused of having a sense of mischief and I'm very flattered that you say you can see it in the roles I play, because I think that's important, even if I do play intense characters, like especially Christine Cagney.
Sharon Gless
#22. I'm sick of carrying guns and beating up women.
James Cagney
#23. 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
#24. 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
#25. 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
#26. 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
#27. 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
#29. 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
#30. 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
#31. 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
#32. 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
#34. Learn your lines ... plant your feet ... look the other actor in the eye ... say the words ... mean them.
James Cagney
#36. Find your mark, look the other fellow in the eye, and tell the truth.
James Cagney
#37. Absorption in things other than self is the secret of a happy life.
James Cagney
#38. 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
#39. 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
#40. 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
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