The great thing about dealing with people about whom we have historical resources, is that if the writing needs work, there's everywhere to go to enrich it.

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.

A concrete love is a mass of emotion formed into a compound mixture of affection, care, desire and expectation.

Hobbits are a lot like Scots. It’s all about nature and enjoying their land, which is a very Scottish thing.

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: 'If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.' Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

The human desire to know why is as powerful as the desire to know what happened next, and it is a desire of a higher order.

What can you do right now to begin to turn your life around? The very first thing is to start making a list of the things you are grateful for.

When God looks at you, he doesn’t see you; he sees the One who surrounds you. That means that failure is not a concern for you. Your victory is secure.

We had a kettle; we let it leak: Our not repairing made it worse. We haven't had any tea for a week... The bottom is out of the Universe.

Labor is life; thought is light.

Even if I'm being selfish, but I want you to only look at me.