The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.
Laurence Olivier

Have a very good reason for everything you do.
Laurence Olivier

Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.
Laurence Olivier

I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it.
Laurence Olivier

I'd like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman.
Laurence Olivier

Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.
Laurence Olivier

I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.
Laurence Olivier