I went to Queen's University Belfast and stayed nine months, then I ran away to be an actor.

To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.

The elderly are all someone's flesh and blood and we cannot just shut them in a cupboard and hand over the responsibility for taking care of them to the state.

To live another person's life is quite a weird thing.

When the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back as a feature film a few years ago, one national newspaper ran a poll to ask its readers who should be the new Doctor, and I topped it.

Childhood didn't have a big influence on me, really - in fact I spent most of it plotting how to escape.

I've come to this conclusion: What makes a great actor is great need. A huge need of acting.

My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.

I am never bored, never short of anything to do and I don't even ever feel lonely. I am quite gregarious and I get out and about a lot, but sometimes it is just wonderful to be on your own.

Having caught a glimpse of what I might be able to do with my talent, I feel a tremendous obligation to try to fulfill it.

Everything that we have gone through, are going through, and will go through is there in Shakespeare. It is all of human life.

I observe to the letter all laws that make sense but combat those that are obsolete or absurd.

The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity ... the ability to express the utmost with the minimum. It is the halfway cultivation that leads to ornamentation.

You have to run the football and stop the run, no matter what level you play at, whether it's high school, college or professional ranks. I'm a firm believer in that.

The truth is never the problem; The problem is always the problem.

Now people look at 'The Scream' or Van Gogh's 'Irises' or a Picasso and see its new content: money. Auction houses inherently equate capital with value.

To play for Barcelona, means to have an opportunity for a brilliant career. But to reach the top of it, you have to play for Real Madrid.

He who hears this name [God] from a Jew must inform the authorities, or else throw sow dung at him when he sees him and chase him away.

There should be less talk. A preaching point is not a meeting point.

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.

Good wombs have borne bad sons." -- (Miranda, I:2)