I'm sure there isn't an after-life. If there were, Ivor Novello would have got a message to us.

Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself.

I am all in favour of spontaneity, providing it is carefully planned and ruthlessly controlled.

One's self-image is very important because if that's in good shape, then you can do anything, or practically anything.

Ingrid Bergman speaks five languages and can’t act in any of them.

You can be good in a good movie, you can be good in a bad movie, you can be bad in a bad movie, but never, ever, be bad in a good movie.

I never accept lengthy film roles nowadays, because I am always so afraid I will die in the middle of shooting and cause such awful problems.

Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.

Most of my friends seem to be either dead, extremely deaf or living on the wrong side of Kent.

When I first went to America in 1928, there were spittoons everywhere. I remember avoiding spit as it flew past me in Times Square. Very unattractive.

Usually one must go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature.

You don't decide what your purpose is in life you discover it. Your purpose is your reason for living.

Opportunities will come and go, but if you do nothing about them, so will you.

I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand out, unfolded, into the sunlight.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.

So if you see Ten Years After, it's not me anymore. I'm very happy with what I am doing now.

The fact that there is a robust debate in Congress is good. The fact that the debate sometimes seems unanchored to facts is not so good.

I have gradually learned to be cautious even in disbelief

I preach freedom of the mind through freedom of the body; women, for example - out of the prison of corsets.

I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy.