Top 66 Michael Keaton Quotes

Actors will say ‘yes’ to anything.

I used to work on a survey crew, because my dad was an engineer, but he was also a surveyor.

I’m in a business that invites narcissism, self-involvement, and egos being blown out of proportion.

There just is not one person in my family who is not funny.

Unless you’re flat out dead, you have to think of some other questions like: what’s on the other side? It brings up issues of God, or no God. How does he play into this? Or he, or she, or it? How does it all play into this?

People always make these generalized statements about Hollywood, and there’s all kinds of people in Hollywood.

Weirdly, for someone who wanted to be funny, I didn’t like a lot of attention.

I never wanted to play the short game.

Technology, you know. I’m pretty horrible. I use it, but mostly I like to view it from afar. But I’m still fascinated by it.

Leaving a lot of movie sets, I’ve gone home and said, ‘How come my hands are clean?’ I should finish something and go home with dirt in my fingernails, because then you really feel that you’ve done something.

Over the years, I think, people – actors, writers, whatever – lose their frame of reference. Their frame of reference is based on somebody else who did this or did that. Performances. So it just becomes a reflection of what already works. Like a warm-up. And that’s an invitation to be inauthentic.

Chris Guest movies are funny.

I’ve changed my diet a few times. Now I’m trying to eat more protein. I eat little meals throughout the day. I love food, so I still give myself great meals. Also, when I’m busy, it’s easy to lose weight.

I’m envious of writers and musicians. I think it must be so difficult. Not just the frustration, but the discipline.

I get kinda self-conscious. I don’t want to know about my eyebrows. I’m born with them.

I choose not to be at the whim of others. I want to be at my own whim.

I’m the seventh child of George and Leona Douglas, and I don’t ever remember a time when my father didn’t work two jobs. When my mother was going to the grocery, or going to Mass, or trying to take care of seven kids in a run-down farmhouse.

I don’t want dogs that have had the personality trained out of them. It’s a partnership. I want to connect.

Have I ever been to a party with a ton of famous people in it? Yes, several times, so I guess that’s a Hollywood lifestyle.

We had four guys in the family, so somebody was always hitting somebody or chasing somebody or getting mad or fighting or wrestling – that was just what you did. So when you’re the youngest, it’s good for you. You figure out real early how to get out of headlocks and holds.

I’d get scripts and think: ‘What’s the point of this?’

Show business is, essentially, a fear-based industry.

The first feature film I did, when I did ‘Night Shift,’ I improvised quite a bit because I would improvise at the audition, so sometimes I would return to the original lines, and then when I was on set, I would improvise even more.

Anesthesia is quite remarkable. It’s lost time. And you wake up kind of refreshed.

I didn’t go to church all the time, just ’cause I was an antsy kid.

I have some tremendous, tremendously loving, generous friends all over the world.

Westerns were always my favorite things when I was little. And it always bothered me when cowboys were too clean in movies, or when they wore their guns like they had an outfit on. It always worked better when a guy looked sweaty and smelly; I hadda believe, I hadda believe that.

I took my play very seriously, and I got way, way lost in my play world.

I watch ‘Morning Joe’ occasionally. I used to watch a lot more than I do now, but I watched it, and all of a sudden, there was this love fest, for crying out loud – this inexplicable love fest one morning – for The Donald.

To this day, I have the most fond memories of some of my old toys.

In terms of the parallels, I’ve never related less to a character than Riggan.

In our family, my brothers and I shared toys. In other words, just because it was mine didn’t mean my brothers and I didn’t play with it.

I’m just shocked at how blatantly shallow people are sometimes.

I like people-people rather than movie people.

When I was in improv workshops or doing stand-up or writing comedy with others, or just doing comedy, I just laughed. Funny was funny; I loved to laugh. I always liked people I found generally funny.

From the time I was a kid, I was crazy about anything having to do with the West. I’d look at all of these photos of Montana, and they all seemed so magical and majestic. I just wanted to go west, and I finally did it when I was barely 21. I went off to volunteer at a Navajo reservation in New Mexico.

I reached a point where I didn’t think I was that great. I’m not being humble. I was looking at things and thinking: ‘You’re not really good in that’. I think I was becoming boring as well as bored. It was nobody’s fault except mine – probably – and it might not even be my fault.

I’ve proven I’m courageous. I’m gutsier than anybody; I’ve got a better imagination than anybody; I’m essentially more creative than any other actor I know, and I’ve proven I take risks. I don’t think I need to prove anything to myself any more.

You don’t get bored with stuff like ‘Birdman.’

Sometimes I don’t feel like an actor. Sometimes I speak about it like it was another job, and then I go, ‘Wait a minute – I am one!’

High energy creates more energy, more energy, more energy. It kicks off synapses, I guess. It opens up your brain and you think of one thing after another thing, after another. You can really open yourself up comedically, which is fun.

If I’m going to meditate, there is a little church up in Montecito, California. It’s an old Spanish mission, actually. I find it comforting in there.

One thing my mother had a nose for was inauthenticity.

My limited theater experience was when I was a kid starting out: two or three plays. I was good in one and mediocre in the other. My problem is that I have other interests.

I still really like newspapers. I’m gonna feel really sad when they go. Or not – maybe I’ll be dead.

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, in a really rundown old house. I’d stay out till 8:30, 9:00 at night. Just blow in. My mom and dad never really cared much. It was okay. We were pretty free to roam. I mean, I had no concept of stopping play. It just didn’t occur to anyone.

I really believed that Batman had the potential to be one of the coolest guys in cinema.

I try to not be or associate with elitists.

If I didn’t do ‘Batman,’ ‘Birdman’ wouldn’t have happened.

I guess I’m probably a Method actor; I don’t know… I just think of it as staying in the zone.

My first day in grade school, I was plain scared. I left the comfort of my run-down house, which I loved, and went to school where it was cold, it smelled, the lighting was bad.

Day to day and doing the work and getting to that honest point – that, for me, is always about – and always will be as long as I do this – refining and refining and refining and refining the truth… constantly being as truthful and honest and raw and real as you can be.

I don’t know how to not be outside since I was a little kid.

‘Beetlejuice’ was a romp, man. ‘Beetlejuice’ was fun. I’ve never had so much fun in my life.

I’ve got six wonderful brothers and sisters.

From an art perspective, I don’t know how you get better than ‘Beetlejuice.’ In terms of originality and a look, it’s 100% unique.

My work is distinct and definitive and specific, and hopefully it is so that every single character is different, and they are – but there’s probably an underlying element that’s me.

In the household in which I was raised, the themes were pretty simple. ‘Work hard. Don’t quit. Be appreciative, be thankful, be grateful, be respectful. Also, never whine, never complain. And always, for crying out loud, keep a sense of humor.’

I never knew anyone who was cloned, but I played one in ‘Multiplicity.’

I don’t know – sometimes I catch myself being dark, and it’s annoying. I think, ‘Get over it.’ I bore myself. But sometimes, like everybody, I’m sure I am obsessive.

I was raising a child full time, sharing the responsibility with his mom. He lived with me half the time, so I chose not to go away and make certain movies.

I have a lot of energy, and I move around a lot in my club act.

Will Ferrell makes me laugh a lot when he gets out there and gets crazy.

I don’t think there’s anybody better than Leonardo DiCaprio, and I’ve been saying that since before anyone knew who he was.

I used to say no to almost everything because I thought, ‘I’ve got enough dough, I know what I want to do, and I know what I’m capable of.’

I saw ‘Wild,’ and I thought, ‘Wow, this is a lot of things, but one of the things is it’s a therapist’s dream and a climate-change denier’s nightmare.’