All these portrayals we see of knights fighting must be absolute rubbish because knights in armour could literally have only had two or three blows and then they'd have had to sit down to have a cup of tea.

The idea of transformation - playing something I'm not - is the bit I enjoy most about acting.

Because I had children relatively late - in my 40s rather than in my 20s - it wasn't anything I ever knew that I would do. It kind of happened to me: I met the right woman and we had children. It was a revelation because it suddenly makes me realize, 'Oh, I get it. Now I know what to do with the rest of my life.'

In the past, if I didn't work, I didn't eat but now I feel I can not work and I won't starve.

It's great to have the chance to play a character before he goes to the dark side, or the yellow side if you will. Normally, you don't get that opportunity. The narrative of a movie usually demands that you are that guy from the start.

I'm very organized and tidy in my home life and I generally do something myself rather than farm it out to somebody else. I don't have an assistant or anything because I think I can do it myself.

My mother moved abroad when I was 11, my dad wasn't around from the time that I was a baby, so I was not the product of a family, but a product of observation - of watching what went on around me, of watching who I liked, what I didn't like, what I thought was good behavior and what I thought was bad behavior and tailoring myself accordingly.

And I think in your 40s, you land a little bit, physically and mentally, you arrive at a place where you feel you've learned some stuff. Having children at that point meant I had something very useful to do for the next 20 years.

If you think about Shakespeare, you remember Richard III and Macbeth before you remember Ferdinand, whose role is just to fall in love and be a bit of a wimp. I love the baddies. More important, though, is making the baddies somehow, weirdly, understood.

You sign for a sequel for everything these days, just in case, options. In the past, you avoided them like the plague because it meant somewhere down the road you couldn't take a job because you had to do a sequel. Now it's a feature of pretty much any feature you do.

All these portrayals we see of knights fighting must be absolute rubbish because knights in armour could literally have only had two or three blows and then they'd have had to sit down to have a cup of tea.

I had this extraordinarily bizarre moment when, two Fridays ago, my missus gave birth to our second child at 11am and by the same time the following day I was sitting around a table with Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio in Rabat in Morocco, rehearsing a scene we were going to shoot the next day.

Athletes as role models and heroes is a hoax, a sick hoax. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq, they are the true heroes.

In a theater, the part is mine and I can control it as I want to. In the movies, I don't have direct contact, and I am fighting technical machinery.

About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you're fighting temptation.

There are not fifty ways of fighting, there's only one, and that's to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.

I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

My back to the goal, physically fighting off defenders, trying to bang my goals in, every week I have to do the business for this club. That's the life of a striker.

A political prisoner is someone who is out fighting for his or her people's rights and freedom and is imprisoned for that alone.

Sir, you have tasted two whole worms; you have hissed all my mystery lectures and been caught fighting a liar in the quad; you will leave by the next town drain.

I don't see it in terms of changing things, but rather using language and music as weapons for fighting a mainstream media which is predominately right wing, and loyal to the political framework and its corporate interests.

I'm fighting for small businesses. I'm not fighting for big oil. Don't be confused. And there are thousands of businesses in this state that are at great risk. Meanwhile, the country keeps guzzling the oil, but we're out of work down here. We need to get back to work to build this region, and we intend to do so.

Until fighting ends and there are conditions, which allow the free expression of will by the people, there can be no elections and elections are not held in these circumstances anywhere in the world.

We need to stop fighting Christian against Christian. I have no time for anything but trying to love other people. That is a full-time job.

Many of America's and New York's sons and daughters are around the world fighting for the freedoms that the Statue of Liberty stands for.

Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition.

You become a champion by fighting one more round. When things are tough, you fight one more round.

Real answers need to be found in dialogue and interaction and, yes, our shared human condition. This means being open to one another instead of simply fighting to maintain a prescribed position.

I was a little girl fighting as a partisan against Nazi-Fascism.

The risk of a terrorist victory is greater when in fighting terror, democracy betrays its own essence.

I want it understood that all these men fought for principle, not for plunder, and that they were true-hearted, honorable soldiers, fighting for what they esteemed was a righteous cause.

My submission to you is we're fighting the war on terror not overseas but in our own streets, and we'd be spending vast more fortunes to try to be a defensive country to protect ourselves rather than an offensive country to spread democracy wherever people yearn for it.

You must never tire fighting Satan.

The Sandinista government became consumed with fighting a war of survival. They were up against the biggest superpower in the world.

A great American city is fighting for its life.

You destroy the initiative of the working people if they don't feel they have a fighting chance to be a part of the American Dream.

If you want to be angry at Gore, be angry at him for not fighting harder in Florida.

Publicly, we're saying we're better at fighting terrorism. Privately, we know that the bureaucracy has only gotten worse, since the high-level people are scared of being held responsible for 9/11.

We are showing that Englishmen can still die with a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end.

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

A man who dreads trials and difficulties cannot become a revolutionary. If he is to become a revolutionary with an indomitable fighting spirit, he must be tempered in the arduous struggle from his youth. As the saying goes, early training means more than late earning.

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.

The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror - and America is honored to be their friend.

I endured many weeks of it, but I had a big background in martial arts and fighting as a kid, so kind of all the problems got brushed away and I was ready.

As we move towards 8 or 10 billion people on the planet, there's a little less gold per capita. Each one of us will continue to be fighting over an ever smaller percentage of total resources. This is not a happy thought.

The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty because freedom is their greatest fear - and they should be afraid, because freedom is on the march.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.

We all want peace. Unfortunately, there are times when peace must be defended by fighting terror and tyranny.