I think it's quite extraordinary that people cast me as if I'm Warren Beatty: until I met my present wife, at the age of 35, you could name two girlfriends.

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment.

I'm fully aware that if I were to change professions tomorrow, become an astronaut and be the first man to land on Mars, the headlines in the newspapers would read: 'Mr. Darcy Lands on Mars.

I would rather five people knew my work and thought it was good work than five million knew me and were indifferent.

My singing voice is somewhere between a drunken apology and a plumbing problem.

My grandmother was a minister as well, which was not that common in the 1930s.

My looks aren't something that come dazzlingly through in everything I do. I can be made to look one way or the other fairly easily... I am still not recognised on the street that much.

I like playing strange characters. Some people might say it has something to do with a hidden part of myself, but I think it's a lot simpler than that: normal people are just not very interesting.

I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that's when you come over all humbug. It's happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you.

Whenever you take on playing a villain, he has to cease to be a villain to you. If you judge this man by his time, he's doing very little wrong.

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally, there are exceptions... the Jewish, Italian, and Irish humor of the East Coast.

Working with plants will teach you all other social commitments in a soothing way...

Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established.

He broke my heart, and now it's raining, just to rub it in...

Many do not have the courage to face the truth of life and instead dwell upon some delusions to escape it. Any such escapism is a major hurdle in spiritual development.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

I've got extra motivation that I won't talk about right now.

That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before.

We should lay in a store of food, but never of pleasures; these should be gathered day by day.

Filming is long - you get very tired, and your skin breaks out and you get lumps and bumps. It's easier if you're allowed to have bags under your eyes.

I owe a large part of my success to Joe Brown, who helped me both as a player and a person.