And that's what happened to that show. It started ordinary, it started really rather bad. As I said, there was a review that said, really, we think the commercials are better than the show. And then it gradually developed.

These things don't just come, arrive and settle like a bird picking up a few bits of crumbs. They develop. I think the best word for these things is develop. They develop because of the human beings who just happen to be there at the time.

I was absolutely delighted that those shows have been preserved.

So I find the fascination, the love, the incredible skill and everything to do with acting, writing plays, and doing them, just darling. Lovely. I love actors.

And in the Second World War, you didn't just read about it in the newspapers because you weren't allowed to read it in the newspapers. It was all censored, you know? So nobody knew what we were doing.

I like most of the Humphrey Bogart movies because they had to act then, and they acted very well. Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor I've ever seen on the movies.

I mean, everyone says Citizen Kane. It isn't that great, anyway. And Orson Welles I knew well, of course. He made other incredible films that no one would let him make, which were much better than Citizen Kane, really.

Accomplishment is such a patronizing, dangerous word, isn't it? I haven't really accomplished anything. The most accomplished thing I've done is to have lived this long - 81.

Well, you know, I was through the whole of the Second World War and saw all my friends killed.

Television has some lovely aspects to it - and some ghastly aspects - but the theater itself was a wonderful invention.

They call it The New Avengers but it's really the old Avengers with new people except for me, looking rather fat and rather old.

But I did an awful lot of work in Hollywood, and in New York for that matter.

The only danger about websites, you know, is people who remember something you did or said thirty or forty years ago, and bring it up against you, so you're going for a job and you don't get it.

Until the year 1967, it was a crime, for which you could be put in prison, to make homosexual love to someone in your own house. If they came in and caught you at it, you could be put into prison. This has changed - I'm talking about England, incidentally.

The radio even weren't allowed to say there was a Holocaust and people were being killed right, left and center in these terrible camps.

It doesn't work that way, you know, because most parts that you think you'd do well, most other people don't. So they offer you something - The Avengers is a good example... I fitted into that because I came from that sort of background. It's not even acting.

And that's what happened to that show. It started ordinary, it started really rather bad. As I said, there was a review that said, really, we think the commercials are better than the show. And then it gradually developed.

I went to acting school, but only for nine months. If you're an actor, you know, don't really need to learn how to do it.

I loved Ingrid Bergman. I sat and saw her on the stage in a theater in the round.

I missed so much of the Swinging Sixties by working. From 1961 to 1969, I got up at 4.30 A.M., a car came for me at 5.30 A.M., and I was taken to our studio at Teddington or Elstree, and we filmed until I got home at 9.30 P.M., five days a week.

I really think I'd have enjoyed the life of a Regency buck.

I take great pride in recalling that I could open in a play on Broadway or in London's West End and fill a theatre on the strength of my name - Steed's name.

I'm not afraid of death. What's to fear? Once you're dead, that's it. Nothing. I don't believe in heaven or hell. That's baloney. What matters is the here and now. Yes, I'm 88, and there are things I can't do: I can't run a race or climb Everest. But isn't life magnificent?

I'm not surprised 'The Avengers' has such enduring popularity, because it was a groundbreaking series that changed television. It was the first show that put its leading man and leading lady on an equal footing and showed a woman fighting and kicking and throwing men around. That was a radical departure in its time.

Linda Thorson was a great actress with a great body, but she arrived just as 'The Avengers' was losing its appeal.

Retirement's the most wonderful thing. I get to enjoy all the things I never stopped to notice on the way up. After an extraordinary life, it's time to enjoy my retirement.

The very first thing you learn if you're a gentleman is that you never compare one woman to another. That's the way of all death.

Television has some lovely aspects to it and some ghastly aspects but the theater itself was a wonderful invention.

I'm convinced that we can shape a different future for this country as it relates to mental health and as it relates to suicide.

I started out as a dancer as a kid; I've been dancing since I was 4. So, performing was always part of what I was. I don't know if it I enjoyed the response I got from people or if I liked having an audience, but there's something in me that wanted to perform.

For 15 years I did two to three movies a year, sometimes four. I didn't get to spend time building my personal life.

Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.

My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.

I realized that everything I do is fantasy, whether it is an adult movie or a kids movie.

I love jewellery, and the idea of having something you've created become tangible is really exciting.

Thieves must sit in prison.

I find that as you get older, you start to simplify things in general.

Customers who have to come back and spend, or customers who just don't want the hassle of leaving - those are the ones who are most worth attracting.

It's almost impossible to have security at the expense of insecurity of others. It's almost impossible to have prosperity when there is a huge problem of poverty and backwardness all over the world.

There is an immediate payoff to intelligent design: it destroys the atheistic legacy of Darwinian evolution. Intelligent design makes it impossible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Authors do not choose a story to write, the story chooses us.

No matter how many feminist tracts you read, you never forget what boys like.

Incidentally, think about the ramifications of storing data on light waves that can be stopped and started at the speed of light.

The only way you do anything is to become really active. And the most effective way to get your message to your elected representatives is to make campaign contributions and develop relationships with them.

No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?

We cannot perform our tasks to the best of our power, unless we think well of our own capacity.

I'm down to act a little bit - go on a couple auditions or make one of those three-second cameos with one line.

I play the keyboard, piano - I like making beats.

The economy's always been the engine for our national security.