Quotes By Mickey Rourke

I did think for many, many years that because of my ability I could beat the system. And I was wrong.

I was very immature when I was young, and for me there was no balance. Everything was just all or nothing.

I had some things I had to fix. It took me 14 years to do it. But it was never really fun back in the day to work with directors who were a lot older and were like authoritarian and talking to you like that.

All I am hoping for is to be able to work - I think my best work is still ahead of me - I think all that I have been through in the last several years have only made me a better, more interesting actor.

Comeback is a good word, man.

It was either therapy or die.

What I've got to do now is let them judge me for who I am as an actor and not for my notoriety.

Years ago I realized that maybe I made mistake, politically, when I turned a lot of that stuff down. I would go off to obscure places and make movies that six people went to see.

I always knew I'd accomplish something very special - like robbing a bank perhaps.

I had a lot of anger inside me and that came out at times that were not particularly advantageous to me career-wise.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

All that prosthetic makeup drains you. By the time it's lunch, you're done.

I trained like an animal, but the thing is focus and concentration. When the bell rings it's like when the little red light goes on over the camera. And I can usually nail my lines on the first or second take because I'm right there.

It's the formulaic studio movies the make money, and when they do, the actors in them are automatically movie stars.

I never look backwards. I have always been an athlete. I boxed before I acted.

It was the most fun I've ever had on a movie. It was one of the happiest times in my life. I was living in New York, and I really enjoyed acting at the time. Also, it's funny because that was also the time when I went downhill.

I started to shortcircuit because I had high aspirations for the film. I never told anybody that.

A lot of the stuff I am now seeing is edgy, raw kinda material.

A couple of guys won Academy Awards for the things that I turned down. Today, after coming to terms with everything, after being in therapy for a long time-there are areas where I will compromise.