Eric Cantona quotes:

If someone is too perfect they won't look good. Imperfection is important.

If you have only one passion in life - football - and you pursue it to the exclusion of everything else, it becomes very dangerous. When you stop doing this activity it is as though you are dying. The death of that activity is a death in itself.

Sometimes in life one experiences an emotion which is so strong that it is difficult to think, or to reason.

The pressure people put on themselves and the rivalry between the teams is much more marked. And I think that's a good thing. As long as that rivalry remains within the spirit of competition, it con only spur everyone on.

My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan.

I'm just enjoying my life at the moment.

Sometimes you get submerged by emotion. I think it's very important to express it - which doesn't necessarily mean hitting someone.

I manage a team, for beach soccer. I'm the coach. Player, coach.

In England, your life is your life.

I started beach football in Monte Carlo when I retired from football in 1997. I liked the game very much.

It is enjoyable to make things visible which are invisible.

I'm proud of what I achieved there, but a life built on memories is not much of a life.

I think life is a big game we play.

When you arrive in England for football it's a paradise.

It's my country but I don't want to know about France - I was born there but I feel English.

I have to wear clothes but I don't like to give an idea of what I am with clothes.

A home is crucial, the foundation of a stable family.

You can lose in cinema too if you don't put on a good performance.

Even as a footballer, I was always being creative.

I know that I have a face, a look, people aren't used to seeing. A presence.

The real fans of football come from the working class. Now they cannot afford to come and watch the game.

On sand, you can never be sure of anything. An ordinary shot can take a wicked deflection at the last moment.

Being on stage isn't so tough compared to the football pitch.

I try to be honest.

I'm lucky to have the privilege of being able to choose what I want to do.

You need a particular talent only to want to please. I don't have this talent.

When times are difficult, I tell myself, 'I'm just passing through.'

I live to feel myself in danger.

I try to find different ways of expressing myself. Without that I will die.

He who has regrets cannot look at himself in the mirror.

You can feel very quickly as a prisoner of your past, of the memories.

I have a car but it's not important.

We can be eaten by techniques and forget what we have inside of us.

I am searching for abstract ways of expressing reality, abstract forms that will enlighten my own mystery.

You may find another Beckham or Ronaldo, but never ever will you find another Sir Alex Ferguson.

Those who hate or disrespect Sir Alex Ferguson , its only because he snatched away their dreams of winning.

Certainly take the advice of others but always, always be yourself.

Children go where they find sincerity and authenticity.

Messi, he's exceptional. When you watch him, you feel there's a child inside him and he is making some childhood dream come true. He's a Great Player, not only for today but also tomorrow.

I don't care about the past.

You can change your wife, your politics, your religion, but never, never can you change your favourite football team.

Sometimes you surprise the goalkeeper and sometimes the goalkeeper surprises you. In my career, I tried to do more of the first than the second.

A good goal is one that is important and beautiful.

Great businessmen are creators.

I apologize for nothing.

Socrates worked towards making people question themselves. He like to provoke self-interrogation but wasn't particularly interested in the answers that emerged; he just like to set off the thought process.

I always planned to retire when I was at the top and at Manchester United I have reached the pinnacle of my career.

Actually, I wanted to act even when I was still playing football.

I stopped playing football because I'd done as much as I could. I needed something which was going to excite me as much as football had excited me.

Whatever happens, there are always things you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have done better. You score two goals and you usually feel you could have scored a third. That's perfectionism. That's what makes you progress in life.

After his first training session in heaven, George Best, from the favourite right wing, turned the head of God who was filling in at left back. I would love him to save me a place in his team, George Best that is, not God.

When you are a rich man you are proud to own a Rolls Royce and when you are a poor man you are proud to own a Renault.

I don't want to be in Terminator. I don't want to go to Hollywood.

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

My best moment? I have a lot of good moments but the one I prefer is when I kicked the hooligan

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.

Every man who has an idol or admires someone can recognise its themes. It's not only a film about the relationship between fans and idols, it's also a love story, a story of a man who is depressed, who has problems in his relationship with his teenage step-children.

You retire, but you're still aching to play. But in order to play, you have to resist certain temptations, and train hard. And I just didn't have the desire to do that any more.

In football you have an adversary; in cinema that adversary is yourself.

We all seem to be about aggression and greed. It's a massive pressure that affects us all.

We won the European Championship last September and now the world title. That is some year for French beach soccer! Now comes the hard part. We have to keep improving and that's difficult because it's tough to do better than winning a world title.

My ancestors were fighters, something I have inherited.

I found leaving Manchester United very, very hard.

I think I have a sense of mischief and that I can laugh at myself.

We all have common frailties but we need to treasure friends more.

I have great memories.

Often there are players who have only football as a way of expressing themselves and never develop other interests. And when they no longer play football, they no longer do anything; they no longer exist, or rather they have the sensation of no longer existing.

I want to look forward.

Manchester United is stronger than anybody in the world.

When I think football, I think Manchester United. I still support United and always will. I will die with them in my heart.

I don't play against a particular team. I play against the idea of losing

An artist in my eyes, is someone who can lighten up a dark room. I have never and will never find difference between the pass from Pele to Carlos Alberto in the final of the World Cup in 1970 and the poetry of the young Rimbaud, who stretches cords from steeple to steeple and garlands from window to window. There is in each of these human manifestations an expression of beauty which touches us and gives us a feeling of eternity.

I play with passion and fire. I have to accept that sometimes this fire does harm.

I'm so proud the fans still sing my name, but I fear tomorrow they will stop. I fear it because I love it. And everything you love, you fear you will lose.

The ball is like a woman, she loves to be caressed.

When people are talking about you, it means that you exist.

When I was banned for nine months I had an opportunity to focus on something else and I needed to focus on something else. It's who I am. I admire Miles Davis and Chet Baker a lot and I like this instrument, so I tried and I learned and practised for two months. But I stopped after that.

I feel close to the rebelliousness of the youth here. Perhaps time will seperate us , but nobody can deny that here, behind the windows of Manchester, there is an insane love of football, of celebration and of music.

I don't think the world of football is so serious. It's important to have distance about things and about yourself. If we believe we are kings or gods, we become crazy. We all know it's a game and we all enjoy it together.

I am very mistrustful of people who are constantly over intellectualising things. It kills passion. You have to allow yourself to lose control from time to time.

I prefer to play and lose rather than win, because I know in advance I'm going to win.

I see the world become so uniform. Everybody has to be the same. I like people who are different.

Being French, to me, is first and foremost being a revolutionary.

For me, I don't like it when there is too much interference in our lives. We're not children. It is our own life in our hands.

It is unacceptable that people often have to make huge sacrifices just to find a place to live, a roof over their heads.

Football lost its excitement for me.

I don't play against any team in particular. I play to fight against defeat.

I like to be fascinated by the people I photograph. Sometimes I don't admire them but I'm interested in them.

When I was a child I had a dream to become a football player. I always played as I played when I was a child. I tried to improve. I never dreamt of becoming a professional football player, I dreamed just to play with the best players in the best team. I never dreamed to be paid to play. I would have paid to play an FA Cup Final in front of 80,000 people in Wembley. I just tried to play the wonderful game that football is. So, I hope young players will still have this dream.

We knew that you don't get to be world champions without a struggle.

Without spontaneity in any sport, you cannot succeed.

Ferguson, as a manager, and Ken, as a director, are very similar. One's a great manager, the other a great director, but both have a lot of humanity and a lot of humility. They always give you the energy... with Ferguson when we played a game it was like it was his first game - he's so passionate and gives you ambition every time. And Ken works the same way - they're very similar.

Domenech is the worst coach France have had since Louis XVI.

I would love him to save me a place in his team, George Best that is, not God.

Every experience makes you a man.

I think it's better to be involved in one or two movies a year.

Some films I say no to and they end up working very well, but I don't care, I just want to do something exciting.

I observe the world and the people surrounding me.

Some people need to stay at the top. They are afraid to re-start from zero because they fear the critics.

The revolution is really easy to do nowadays.

I don't take life so seriously I can just play with life.

The French have only negative things to say about everything and everyone.

I don't know where my medals are.

I like to stay at home and make cinema in my head.

Become a legend? But I am already.

An artist is someone with the gift to light up a dark room.

I don't want to be in 'Terminator'. I don't want to go to Hollywood.

Anyone who is different or is slightly out of the norm, is considered crazy.

I didn't want really to be involved in a normal soccer club.

I don't need to be involved with a game watched by millions of people to be fulfilled.

My father's parents were from Sardinia and my mother's from Barcelona.

I didn't study; I live.

You are constantly battling against your own weaknesses to make a good performence.

I always knew I had to work hard.

There were moments - I would be daydreaming - I would imagine scenes, even if there wasn't a camera around. In my head, I was acting.

What is the system? It revolves around the banks, the system is built on the power of the banks, so it can be destroyed through the banks.

I don't think we can be entirely happy seeing such misery around us.

I was always being creative. I could never have played a defensive role because I would have been forced to destroy the other player's creativity.

I always wanted to play against the best.

With my two brothers, Jean-Marie and Joel, I wrote a two-page story and wanted to make some kind of movie. We met a French production company, called Why Not?, and the first name we put on the list was Ken Loach. It was a dream for all of us. So, we tried and we met Ken and Paul Laverty, his writer, and they read the two pages and were inspired by that to do something. Paul had the freedom to do his own story - and he wrote his own story, which is better than the one we'd written.