I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

There are some actors who are rehearsal actors, and some who are not. I am not. Having said that, I don't know what I am talking about.

There's no subtext in Harry Potter really; it's all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.

Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?

A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

Television has dried up for my generation, so its plays and films.

There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

I think sometimes if you are alone, you are freer because your time is your own.

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative.

The half-hour before dinner has always been considered as the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner-party, will either pass with flying colours, or lose many of her laurels.

Oh my God, I can't believe what you did for me - thank you. I love you so much.

Plenty of people are onto the emptiness but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Fidelity gives a unity to lives that would otherwise splinter into thousands of split-second impressions.

Is there a man in the world who suffers as I do from the gross inadequacies of the human race?

When you've got a Chautauqua in your head, it's extremely hard not to inflict it on innocent people.

Human potential, though not always apparent, is there waiting to be discovered and invited forth.