For me, half the joy of achieving has been the struggle and the fight, the pitting myself against the world and all its competition - and winning.

My birth neither shook the German Empire nor caused much of an upheaval in the home. It pleased mother, caused father a certain amount of pride and my elder brother the usual fraternal jealousy of a hitherto only son.

I was never a villain on the stage. I always played strong, sympathetic types. My first stage role with a speaking part, believe it or not, was as a priest. It wasn't until I began acting in films that the producers and directors saw me primarily as a bizarre villain.

After my mother died, I found, a little book of hers which recorded everything I had ever done, how I had done it, and how proud she was of her son Conrad.

My father died. It is still a deep regret to me this day that in choosing acting as my career I was forced to hurt him. He died too early to see I had done the right, the only thing.

I turned down the first script offered to me, and the second. I lay on my back one day under an umbrella, in the garden, reading the third, and wondered why I had turned down the first.

It is precisely as though I were possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being.

Nothing seems to come up to your expectations. But nothing I had heard about Hollywood was enough.

I was appalled at the amount of study necessary in order to qualify in medicine, and gradually my desire was blunted by a keener - and secret - wish to become an actor.

I think the motion picture industry is a stupid business and I despise acting the scenes in short snatches, one at a time. I hate this film work. I am disgusted with myself. On the stage I could never play a part unless I felt it with all my heart and soul.

So now it is time to disassemble the parts of the jigsaw puzzle or to piece another one together, for I find that, having come to the end of my story, my life is just beginning.

It is my greatest joy to live a really good part, even though it imposes great strain. An artist is tired but proud when he has created a great work of art. So it is with the actor who really lives a great role and is proud of the part he played.

What use is there for a biography of myself? I'm just a movie actor.

In the middle of my third Hollywood picture The Magician, the earthquake hit Hollywood. Not the real earthquake. Just the talkies.

There must have been something in my nature - I believe, with all my heart, that I have conquered it now - which prevented me from being perfectly happy or making a woman perfectly happy.

I wish, naturally to prevent the possibility that someone may write an accidental, superficial, incomplete and perhaps untrue picture of me.

I can see now that I should have been strong enough to conquer myself.

No, I was not born with a monocle in my eye.

Looking back across the years, so many pictures flash on the screen of my memory that just as I begin to see one clearly, another slides in, blotting out the first, itself to be pushed aside by the next and the next and the next.

I have no illusions about my art. I am what the public made me and, consequently, I am not likely to forget my debt to them.

Have you ever walked late at night through a forest when you are first in love?

An actor remembers his first piece of published praise. It is written on his heart.

I used to think then that I was Bohemian, but I know now that I am not. I prefer order and precision to untidiness and looseness.

For me, half the joy of achieving has been the struggle and the fight, the pitting myself against the world and all its competition - and winning.

Some people don't like competition because it makes them work harder, better.

Anytime you have a difficult encounter with your child, there is a good chance that at least one of these factors is bringing out the worst in him or her: transitions, time pressure, competition for your attention, conflicting objectives.

I want to be the first lady to land a quadruple jump in competition. As I grow older, I know that my skating style will develop and mature.

The time has come for the American government to recognize the damage that has occurred to our economy, and to take firm action to curtail what I believe is both unfair and illegal foreign competition.

In my fifty years of experience and memory, I have seen the most amazing increase in the standard of living of a people ever achieved anywhere in the world. This is why I am so sure that our system of free competition and industrial development is sound and must be preserved.

We got to know the competition very well. In the '50s popcorn made a big growth in sales. Our main push was to produce the best quality and sell in quality retail outlets.

We live in a time today where we face fierce global competition.

The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of his or her organization is going to blow the competition away.

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history - the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled.

Running became boring because it's so predictable. I got to a point where I knew what my competition could do.

There are horses people use for competition, and if they don't perform well or go lame, then people ask the vet to put them down to get the insurance money. And my vet knows I love horses, so he gives them to me.

Well, we know that people in Australia love the idea of both Impulse and Virgin Blue getting up and adding a bit of competition, and it's fun to be able to deliver it.

I kinda see everyone as competition. I'm a very competitive person. But I think that's good. Competition is great. And as long as it's friendly and not a malicious thing, then I think it's cool.

The stark reality facing us today is that without the labour reforms, workers will get neither the income nor jobs in the face of cut-throat global economic competition.

I ride my horse at competition level.

I don't see myself as competing with other actresses. I mean, I went through a time when I was in New York, and I was going to lots of auditions and trying to get parts, but even then, you're not really competing with the other actresses. There is a competition going on, but it's not like something you can win in that way.

Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition.

No, there's not much competition between puppeteers in general because everybody's working their own style.

I think it's good to have competition. Now we have a third country that can launch astronauts, so it's good for all of us. It makes us a little bit more competitive and wanting to be the leader.

My commitment to Atlanta and passion for sports and competition make this acquisition a perfect fit for me.

And what it depends on, of course, is whether the story itself is worth the ethical compromise it requires and whether the competition is onto the story.

Good will is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.

If you do things with a certain type of result and cause a certain type of reaction or effect, then you increase your market value. It's very much a competition for the entertainment dollar, and that's never been more clearly evident than in today's NBA game.

There are 20 million unemployed and what does the Constitution offer us in the Europe of 25, 27 and soon to be 30: policies of unrestricted competition to the detriment of production, wages, research and innovation.