There's no subtext in Harry Potter really; it's all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.

There are some actors who are rehearsal actors, and some who are not. I am not. Having said that, I don't know what I am talking about.

I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?

A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

Television has dried up for my generation, so its plays and films.

There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

Affliction caused by the tongue is worse than that caused by the strike of the blade of a sword.

Always try to be a little kinder than necessary.

Galatians 5:21 constitutes the most serious warning to those who may think they can sin that grace may abound.

I think family is so important.

we are the ones we have been waiting for

Who calls a lawyer rogue, may find, too lateUpon one of these depends his whole estate.

The more government dependents, the more likely that democracy will become a conspiracy against self-reliance.

Religion isn't in your DNA. you don't believe just because your parents believe.

I definitely tell things at arm's length but that is conscious. No part of me wants everybody to know what's going on.

Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.