My dad was a surgeon, my mom a nurse, and they were always out working. I had five sisters and a brother. They didn't care what I got up to.

I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem's a nickname; it's a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.

The English Patient' is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me.

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.'

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider.

If you keep chasing shooting stars, you'll never feel the warmth of the sun.

If our church is not marked by caring for the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, we are guilty of heresy.

Nothing is greater than or lesser than the self.

Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.

I'm not old-fashioned when it comes to dating, but there's something nice about a guy pulling out a girl's chair and opening the door for her, even if it's just in the beginning.

When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but in Milan I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal.

There is an underlying timelessness in the basic conversation that is mathematics.

Man is more ape than many of the apes.

A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud.

There is no greater weapon than knowledge and no greater source of knowledge than the written word.