Steve McQueen quotes:

I'm not a great actor - let's face it. I don't have a great deal of scope. There are certain things I can do, but when I'm bad, I stink. There's something about my shaggy dog eyes that makes people think I'm good. I'm not all that good.

Stardom equals financial success and financial success equals security. I've spent too much of my life feeling insecure. I still have nightmares about being poor, of everything I own just vanishing away. Stardom means that can't happen.

I would rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth.

I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise I'm lost.

Ill never be as good an actor as I want to be....but I'll be good.

When I did 'The Great Escape,' I kept thinking, 'If they were making a movie of my life, that's what they'd call it - the great escape.'

I have difficulty putting words in peoples' mouths. The best dialogue is very, very thin dialogue; you let people improvise and then basically you record what they've improvised and then write it down.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

I liked being in the Marines. They gave me discipline I could live with. By the time I got out, I was able to cope with things on a more realistic level.

I love creating images, of course, because I'm an artist.

If I hadn't made it as an actor, I might have wound up a hood....

I believe in me. I'm a little screwed up, but I'm beautiful

Nobody trusts anyone, or why did they put tilt on a pinball machine....

I'm not sure that acting is something for a grown man to be doing.

I don't want to talk about nonsense because it doesn't help me.

I really don't like to act. At the beginning, back in '51, I had to force myself to stick with it. I was real uncomfortable, real uncomfortable.

Acting is like racing, you need the same concentration. You have to reach inside you and bring forth a lot of broken glass. That's painful.

Anything that doesn't make sense, I don't want to give too much of my brain to.

As far as art and filmmaking is concerned, I don't see there's any separation; it's just one continuous thing.

Every time I start thinking the world is all bad, then I start seeing people out there having a good time on motorcycles. It makes me take another look.

Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live,

I always feel I'm an amateur. I don't most of the time know what I'm doing.

I deal with certain things in my work because of who I am. I make work in order to make people think.

I don't know why it (stardom) happened-but it's kinda nice. Maybe it's because I'm someone off the streets. Maybe people relate to me.

I don't like to put too much effort into things. I find that once you get involved with special effects it is no longer about what is happening in front of the camera and I really want to concentrate on what is happening in front of the camera, like the man apparently peeing on the surface of the screen.

I find it difficult to breathe when l'm in the space. There seems to be no oxygen. I want to put people into a situation where they're sensitive to themselves watching the piece.

I live for myself and answer to nobody

I think as an actor, you're more like a dancer, and you have to use your body. I don't understand all these questions about nudity. It's a nonsense. He's an actor, an artist, so get on with it.

I want people to do what they want to do because when they feel comfortable it seems to translate better on screen. It is when you put people in a straitjacket that it doesn't seem to translate very well at all. The individuals I work with are usually people I know.

I worked hard, and if you work hard you get the goodies.

I've got a feeling I'm leaving stardom behind, you know. I'm gradually becoming more of a filmmaker, acquiring a different kind of dignity from that which you achieve in acting. After all, I'm no matinee idol, and I'm getting older. I don't think I can be doing my kind of thing in the seventies; I want to be on more of the creative side of business.

Often the best way to relax is just to go back to work.

One of the things that make motorcycling so great is because it never fails to give you a feeling of freedom and adventure.

People try to contain things by putting them into categories. I don't.

Racing is life. Everything else is just waiting.

Sometimes you have to bend with the breeze or you break.

Sometimes you have to say goodbye to the things you know and hello to the things you dont.

Stardom equals freedom. It's the only equation that matters.

The best thing about making films is the time spent making them. When I see works that I've made, I always think what a great time I had making them. The films remind me of that time.

The camera movement should be like a cat jumping onto a table - with just enough amount of effort and that's it. That's enough.

The Navajos have a saying they live by: 'A land where there is time enough and room enough.' I want that, too.

The person is being confrontational.

The world is as good as you are. You've got to learn to like yourself first.

There is no right or wrong angle for something. The idea of putting the camera in an unfamiliar position is simply to do with film language. Sometimes it is spectacular, sometimes it is ugly, sometimes it is uninteresting.

When a horse learns to buy martinis, I'll learn to like horses.

When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it.

When I walk out into the street or go to the toilet, I don't think of myself as being black. Of course, other people think of me as black when I walk into a pub. Obviously being black is a part of me.

When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.

You see, I don't believe in that grabbin' and grabbin' and stuffin yourself and not givin' anythin' or puttin' it back.