I have no cynicism at all.

I have no cynicism at all.

Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history.

You don't expect to get the letter saying, Her Majesty would like to appoint you Knight Commander of the British Empire! It was just a completely overwhelming and exciting day.

As a gay Jewish white South African, I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are, what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are.

Life is just more comfortable if you're honest and open about everything. I spent so many years being in the closet about one thing or another.

A lot of good actors tend to be quite introverted as people.

Every play I do, every book I write, every painting I paint, I will struggle with. I don't know what it's like for a project to come easy.

I don't believe in an afterlife.

I feel so sorry for younger actors who aren't able to have the opportunities that I had, starting out in repertory theatre. It's really tough on young actors now.

I have a Woody Allen Jewish attitude to life: that it's all going to be disastrous. That it hasn't all been that way is simply down to some random quirk of fate.

I love playing outsiders, I always do.

I love the mixture that's in me. It makes me me. And that's why it's such a shame that people waste energy in denying who they are.

I never regret things. It's a really dangerous thing to say, but for anyone involved in the arts, the bad things that happen make for good material. It's not a comfortable truth, but it is true.

I was a weak kid, not good at what all the boys at school were good at and I found that by acting, by being other people, I could liberate myself from those inadequacies.

I was never built to play the hero. Physically or emotionally... And they're not as rewarding to play. At least for me.

I'm a complete technophobe. I can't even email.

I'm a huge fan of David Hockney. I love the way he keeps reinventing himself.

I'm always very proud of belonging to three minorities: gay, Jewish, white South African.

If I could write a letter to my teenage self, I'd probably say something like: 'You ain't gonna believe what will become of you.'

It's good for actors to confront those things we have to act: panic, pain and death.

My grandparents all came from Lithuania to South Africa.

The whole of my acting career is a bit of a mystery to me.

We've all got darkness inside us. And I've got quite a lot of darkness.

What drew me to acting in the first place was disguise.

When I am on a long run in a play, I'm not sure how I would fill the days if I did not paint or write. On a basic level, it just stops me going crazy.

When I'm painting and drawing I only do people. Acting is obviously portraiture - and writing is as well.

Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

I am most proud of my integrity and least proud of my cynicism.

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.

If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.

I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the sentimentalism of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.

Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

Irony differentiates. Cynicism never does.

I have no cynicism at all.

I read some of my stories recently and thought, 'How in the hell did I get away with that?' I had some really raw cynicism in some of them.

My level of cynicism about the reasons that took us to war against Iraq remain just as well-developed as they were before I went.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Hypocrisy is the outside of cynicism.

The only deadly sin I know is cynicism.

Reforming public education, cutting property taxes, fixing adult and child protective services and funding our budget can all occur when Democrats and Republicans engage in consensus and cooperation - not cynicism and combat.

The nature of journalism has been the enemy of idealism and the source of cynicism among American reporters and editors throughout our history.

This isn't really a convention, This is really an infomercial. And every night we'll have a different infomercial and people view it with a certain level of cynicism.

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

For a poet to depict a poet in poetry is a hazardous experiment; in regarding one's own trade a sense of humour and a little wholesome cynicism are not amiss.

It is only the cynicism that is born of success that is penetrating and valid.