Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Never forget your sense of humour.
Oh, I don't have any religious beliefs.
The devil is more interesting than God.
I'm used to big roles and lots of words.
I rather like the idea of defying death.
History remembers most what you did last.
I hate turbulence in life, but also on planes.
We all live with more mortality because we're all on drugs.
Some of the best casts I've ever worked with have been dogs.
In Stratford you either turn into an alcoholic or you better write.
I admire Ridley Scott, and I'm thrilled to be making a movie for him.
I would rather not know about how one gets parts in movies these days.
They realized I was alive again, even though I was playing an old, dying sop.
Simon Pegg is terribly talented, very funny, such a delicious sense of humour.
Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine.
You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?
I'm too old-fashioned to use a computer. I'm too old-fashioned to use a quill.
I couldn't believe when I first got a fan letter from Al Pacino, it was unreal.
I just do what I want to do, and if it's a rather interesting script - which I found.
I just can't tell you what fun I've had being a member of the world's second oldest profession.
I don't want death to suddenly interrupt what I'm doing. I don't like the idea of death at all.
The part of Mike Wallace drew me to the movie because I thought, what an outrageous part to play.
I was an only child, so I was very demanding. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I wasn't very pleasant.
I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.
Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.
I thought, 'If I make 35, it'll be okay,' and then at 40, I got scared, and now that I'm 81, I'm scared to death.
Try and stay sober. Until the curtain call. And for God's sake, have fun. Don't suffer for your art. Just have fun.
Unless you can surround yourself with as many beautiful things as you can afford, I don't think life has very much meaning.
A lot of people want to retire; I couldn't. You don't retire in our business. What, play golf and watch television? Oh, please.
I actually was brought up by an Airedale. I don't really remember my parents, especially my mother. It was only the dog that I saw.
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.
I think of being ornate as a Victorian quality, little to do with Shakespeare. But even Dickens wasn't ornate; he wrote with flow and naturalism.
Most actors come from the streets, and their rise to fame is guided by a natural anger. It was harder to find that rage coming from a gentle background.
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.
It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.
I've been very fortunateit's just been an amazing piece of luck. I haven't had to suffer for my art but I've suffered enough inside to hopefully be called an artist.
The first time my father saw me in the flesh was on the stage, which is a bit weird. We went out to dinner, and he was charming and sweet, but I did all the talking.
I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.
I love trying to give some flesh to rather naked bones sometimes. I've always felt it my duty and to try and bring on the character's off-stage life, what happened that is not revealed.
Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.
A truly great structure, one that is meant to stand the tests of time, never disregards its environment. A serious architect takes that into account. He knows that if he wants presence, he must consult with nature.
When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.
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?
Not the challenges necessarily, but the way in which you get ready because your technique has improved over the years and you perhaps know how to be more economical than perhaps you used to be when you tried to work perhaps too hard.
In Montreal, when I grew up, I'd go to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a gorgeous cathedral in town. I'd listen to huge symphony orchestras, Pavarotti singing operas; that was absolutely marvelous. I like that aspect of the cathedral, the spectacle.
My great-grandfather was prime minister of Canada, and I had a very Edwardian upbringing. It was a beautiful, romantic way of growing up, until the family lost its money. And I decided to be bad and rough and find the streets rather than the gates.
I wasn't thrilled about 'The Sound Of Music' - not the movie itself but my role in it. Captain Von Trapp was a bore, and they tried to help by giving it a bit more cynicism, but it wasn't my favourite role. I enjoyed the music, and I loved Julie Andrews.
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've done a lot of pictures that are ensemble, and I've not always liked the people I was working with, but that doesn't make any difference because you do the job, and often it turns out to be a great ensemble even if you didn't particularly really like anybody.
We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do 'A Christmas Carol' on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.