Christopher Plummer quotes: the late Canadian actor’s most impactful quotes.
“Sometimes you have to look into a mirror and look at the worst you could have been if you’re ever going to know the best you were meant to be.”
“This is America, the place to find hope. If you give up now, you will never find them. So never say never.”
“History remembers most what you did last.”
“Adventure is out there.”
“You have to go with the flow. Although one is very happy to be in it, it is sort of hard to talk about it. It is hard to talk about success. It is much easier to talk about failure.”
“Everything has a price. The great struggle in life is coming to grips with what that price is.”
“I always say that it’s sad that most people are not happy with what they’re doing, that they spend their lives and can’t wait to get out of their job and retire. I can’t wait for my next job in my profession.”
“Never forget your sense of humor.”
“I was always a happy kid. I’d play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It’s a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?”
“I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.”
“I just can’t tell you what fun I’ve had being a member of the world’s second oldest profession.”
“I always look for the next role to be as different as possible from the one I just did. The world saw the movie The Sound of Music, and the world doesn’t come to the theater. You don’t get that sort of adulation until you do a blockbuster. I’m grateful for it because it enabled me to afford to do things that I wanted to do. And a good table at a restaurant.”
“I’d been successful since I was in my 20s, but a lot of people think that winning the Oscar is the be all and the end all. That just comes nicely toward the end of a career.”
“We’re here to do some extraordinary work, if we can, and one has spent one’s whole life doing that without any kind of Oscar nod. So, I just think that awards are just for business, really. They’re business awards.”
“The theater is a great challenge for memory. That’s the most important thing you have in life. This is a wonderful exercise to keep it alive.”
“I think serious people like myself, actors like myself, love the words and the work first, and if you just happen to have a prize come your way, that’s even better; particularly if it’s from your peers.”
“I buried myself so much in the classics that I felt, ‘Well now, I’ve played all the big parts, whether badly or goodly, I don’t give a damn, but at least I’ve played them all. Now, let’s start again. Let’s start the whole career again.’ And it makes you feel like you’re beginning again, it really does.”
“Oh, acting is the most fascinating job. I mean, it’s a vocation, a hobby, a job. It’s everything to me. I won’t go as far as saying it’s a religion but I think it’s more fun than religion. It’s romance and escape. And I’ve been escaping all my life. I love it.”
“I love what I’m doing on the screen, particularly now. The roles are getting richer and more interesting as I grow older. I’m very lucky. Or maybe there’s nobody left, at my age. I have no competition anymore because I am the oldest man on earth.”
“I’m insatiably ambitious.”
“Too many people in the world are unhappy with their lot. And then they retire and they become vegetables. I think retirement in any profession is death, so I’m determined to keep crackin’.”
“A lot of people want to retire; I couldn’t. You don’t retire in our business. I’m in good shape. I could play 60 with ease.”
“I’ve never worked as hard as I have in my life at the present time and I think it’s wonderful. It keeps me on my toes. It keeps me young. It keeps my memory going.”
“I just do what I want to do.”
“I’m talking about when you’re nearer the end of your life than the beginning. Now what do you think you think about then? The future? In the future I’m going to do this? Become that? What future? No. What you think is, ‘How will I be regarded in the end?'”
“I didn’t have to keep a bloody journal. It’s terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.”
“I don’t want death to suddenly interrupt what I’m doing. I don’t like the idea of death at all. I rather like the idea of defying death.”
“Just keel over while doing a play? Absolutely! It’s the way to go. I want to be very present at my own death, I want to know every second of it, every subtle change. It’ll be fascinating.”
“I hate turbulence in life, but also on planes.”
“I love my profession. It keeps me young. It’s my hobby as well as my profession. It’s a great profession if you’re lucky at it. I’ve had a wonderful life, seen the world and they’ve paid for it!”
“I’ve been very fortunate, it’s just been an amazing piece of luck.”
“I like things. Things, objects, artifacts, paintings, they all are exactly what they appear to be. They never change; they never disappoint.”
“Unless you can surround yourself with as many beautiful things as you can afford, I don’t think life has very much meaning.”
“If you can count your money, you’re not a billionaire.”
“Drinking was particularly fun and fashionable in the 50s. Drugs started to creep in and do their rather remote work in the late 60s and 70s. And then in the 80s and 90s everyone started to get terribly serious—drinking water all the time—or taking drugs. Poor old booze took a back seat.”
“I’ve been at it forever, it seems, so it doesn’t really take me too far up to the sky now. When I was young, the euphoria was truly extraordinary, and in those days, we drank ourselves down. We hit the bar, kind of anaesthetizing ourselves. We don’t drink so much these days, and I miss it dreadfully: the laughter, the naughtiness of the mid-century. It was such fun. Everybody takes themselves soooo seriously now.”
“Try and stay sober. Until the curtain call. And for God’s sake, have fun. Don’t suffer for your art. Just have fun.”
“We should concern ourselves not so much with the pursuit of happiness but rather with the happiness of pursuit.”
“Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.”
