I think if I were asked to do as many as fifty takes, I would assume the director had no idea what he wanted, and was just hoping, eventually, to see it.

Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it.

I often thought my gravestone would say, 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out,'

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different.

To know you are in the company with people who love and care for each other, as well as for whatever they are working on, is almost essential.

I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.

You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.

We are very lucky to be men because women have a terrible time getting older parts. It's much more difficult.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.

Rhetoric is what shapes history, if not truth.

This woman could make a saint sin.

Never in our silent moments of illusion do we sense the dark parallel that lives next to us. Nor do we suspect the carrier.

Go forth into the busy world and love it. Interest yourself in its life, mingle kindly with its joys and sorrows.

I am a passionate lover of the snapshot, because of all photographic images it comes closest to truth.

I have to say that I think that Anthony Eden was probably the most disastrous Prime Minister in our history, and I am not forgetting Lord North and a few people like that.

It doesn't make any difference what religion you are, or how young you are or how old you are-if they go to these abortion mills and stand there and pray-that would make a lot of difference.

Prepare for war, since you have been unable to endure a peace.

Die in obeying commands like a soldier, and go to Nirvana, but no cowardice.

Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, but it does provide deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair