I'm a huge fan of David Hockney. I love the way he keeps reinventing himself.

Life is just more comfortable if you're honest and open about everything. I spent so many years being in the closet about one thing or another.

The effort of learning. It's the same when you approach any new skill or technique, from a dance step to driving a car. The effort of learning stops you, at first, from doing it well.

Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history.

What drew me to acting in the first place was disguise.

I can feel the power of the words doing the work. Must trust language more.

I have a Woody Allen Jewish attitude to life: that it's all going to be disastrous. That it hasn't all been that way is simply down to some random quirk of fate.

It's good for actors to confront those things we have to act: panic, pain and death.

I don't believe in an afterlife.

I feel so sorry for younger actors who aren't able to have the opportunities that I had, starting out in repertory theatre. It's really tough on young actors now.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

our feet are grape-squashed in memoriesour skins are still flushedfrom the touch of summer’s lips.

Hush my dear lie still and slumber! Holy angels guard they bed! Heavenly blessings without number Gently falling on thy head.

One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is "Whatever you do, don't be boring."

Every woman dreams of love. When she is young she prays she will find it. When she is middle aged she hopes for it and when she is old she remembers it.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Nature, time and patience are three great physicians.

Ideas are the easy part. The hard part is writing them down.

Defeat is only a defeat when we don't learn anything.

[Georges] Simenon could be very brave like that. You never quite know what you're going to get or how the story's going to be told.

We have power not just with our voices, but we have economic power in what we do for a living, too.