I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted.

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.

Faith is active and action word.

You don't have to fake your lifestyle to be relevant. You are already a perfect creation from God. Be proud of your true self.

You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.

Change has come to America.

If George Bush can't get along with Stephen Harper, he can't get along with any world leader. They're ideological cousins, if not twins.

So long as I'm the president, we will. I clearly see the challenge. I see the challenge of what these threats pose to our homeland, and I see the challenge of what these threats pose to the world.

Inflation is not only unnecessary for economic growth. As long as it exists it is the enemy of economic growth.

The King can do no wrong; he cannot constitutionally be supposed capable of injustice.

It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

I don't think any of my kids would have a good word to say about me. I think they deny that they even know me. At school, they pretend they are Anton du Beke's kids.