I don't think people are interested in my personal life. I've never had a Hollywood life. I've always been a worker.

I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem's a nickname; it's a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.

The English Patient' is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me.

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.'

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider.

It’s hardly ever that I am hurt by something in only one dimension.

If the beat gets to the audience, and the message touches them, you've got a hit.

The superabundance alludes to the myth that is ensuring our demise but it's also the space around and possibly the void that we enter into, beyond that delusion.

Any change in attitude changes the way one sees the world, and this in turn changes the way one acts.

The grave is, I suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so heartily abhors.

I always want my guests to be happy and impressed.

I always feel like I'm forgetting things.

To be able to get up and be in my studio and work all day is a great joy.

Emerging investors want to invest differently. They want to have their dollars - their investment dollars - do double duty.

We can work together for a better world with men and women of goodwill, those who radiate the intrinsic goodness of humankind.