To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.

You should never feel comfortable. There is something wrong if you are. You should always feel under threat, on the edge of your seat and pushing yourself. Win one and you want to win more. It's never-ending.

The problem comes when you say that danger is part of the equation. Then you don't do any more work on safety. That shouldn't happen.

I had a lot of time to think, and that is not good for your mind. And when it actually happened, it was not so much a celebration but the relief. It was an exorcism anxiety. After each race there is a procedure in which you get taken off to the podium and the TV interviews.

If I am treated fairly, I like to do things in a fair manner. That is the way I have been all my career. I haven't tried to do things in an underhanded way.

Winter testing is essential but there comes a point where you have had enough of all the rehearsals and the pretend racing. You just want to get down to the real action.

Last year was a lifetime, a whole career in one season. We went from being the dregs to winners.

The sport would not survive today if drivers were being killed at the rate they were in the 1960s and '70s. It would have been taken off the air. It is beamed into people's living rooms on Sunday afternoons, with children watching.

People ask me to describe myself, but it's a very personal thing. You don't feel comfortable.

I am very much aware that if I am getting good press at the moment I could just as easily be getting bad press. I cannot have the good and forget the bad. You have to accept it both ways.

I think at times I appear to be miserable when I am not... I might be having quite a good thought at that moment, but it seems I look miserable. I am not.

Some books claim I have already clocked up a century of Grands Prix, but let me put the record straight. Australia will be my 100th start, and I aim to mark the milestone with a cracking performance. It could even be celebrated with a victory.

Realistically, we could aim for the top three in the constructors championship. Realistically, we could look at winning more races. Three race wins would be very satisfying.

If someone is being absolutely critical of me as a driver, what could they say? I am also critical of myself to try and keep things in perspective. That is very important.

I have always liked a challenge.

The British tend to shy away from the spotlight. We don't like being singled out in any way, and I think that is something which is important for me to learn to do.

To be honest, I think for part of my late teens my character didn't really develop very much. I was in a state of cold storage.

Because it is my second season with the team, no time has been wasted in getting to know the people I'm working with. I am aware of what the team is capable of and how the organisation works, and they are familiar with what makes me tick.

I am surprised people took so long to pick up on the fact that my contract expires at the end of this year. Eddie has to decide who he wants to drive, so there is no secret anywhere. I am not concerned. It does not sit with my objectives to be competitive.

If I am pushed I will push back, that is the way I am. I am very British. We don't like to be pushed around. When the chips are down we might have to step into grey areas.

It was five years since I'd won a race, so I was a bit bewildered.

There are a lot of factors in the life of an F1 driver which can combine to make you believe that you are somehow above normality. I think that is a mistake to start believing that. But, at the same time, it is important to be confident.

I am not allowing myself to get carried away.

I try to keep myself on an even keel by trying to be as critical of myself as I am of other people. I try to separate my performance from myself.

Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

I do like to embed a fictional character firmly in an occupation.

But even with a character like Cary who is relatively outlandish, at the end of the movie he's in a place where I wouldn't have expected him to be - taking on the responsibility of a woman who is pregnant and who used to be his best friend's wife.

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do.

I liked Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and that is the kind of character that I would like to have played. That would have been more in tune with who I really was.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

In a lot of ways, the make-up was the character.

The more we study the Indian's character the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage.

So many people have said that to me, that what they really like about Alex is what she brings out in Marissa, and what this situation brings out in her, a hint of happiness and another side to her character.

I've been on the show for six years and I don't even know what her history is. I sort of make things up in my mind, but I think it's hard for an audience to follow and invest in a character when they don't have the details.

It is not true that drink changes a man's character. It may reveal it more clearly.

Because I killed a guy in real life, and because my character kills a guy onstage, they said I could never do anything this great again. I resented that.

Well, I go to the theater today, and its curtain - there is no curtain in this play; the lights go down and go up - and we start. And I live this character for two hours. There are only two of us in the play. And It's a complete experience.

I just kind of understood it, and I threw my love for others and love for life into the character, and was having a blast. I loved playing Dharma. I loved it!

I think if you play a character that is fearless, then it's boring. I think that's what was so incredible about Harrison Ford, is that he always seemed like he was never going to survive it, he's always scared, and yet he always does survive it somehow.

If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.

Every character I play has to be the hero of his own story, the way we're all heroes of our own lives.

To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life.

Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character.

I feel like I'm the most well-adjusted character on the show, even though I'm sure the other actors would tell you the same thing about their characters.

And what's interesting about him as a comic character is that the custard pie hardly ever ends up on his face.