Alan Rickman Quotes

Give me a window and I'll stare out it.

I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.

If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.

I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

We're dead as a species if we don't tell stories, because then we don't know who we are.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word [...] - a jouuuuuurney.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.

Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.

I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don't like what's being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.

The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.

Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.

I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.

There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.

I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.

I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.

I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.

I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.

I can only see my limitations. That's just who I am.

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.

One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing - if I was lucky. Then along came movies.

When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.

I don't play villains, I play very interesting people

You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.

The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

I like it when stories are left open.

I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.

I'm very aware that when one is acting in the theater, you do become kind of animal about it. And you're reliant on instincts rather than tact a lot of the time.

What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.

My definition of palatable might be slightly different from yours.

So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.

I'm a lot less serious than people think.

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

I think worrying things are going on in England - a real apathy.

I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.