Anthony Hopkins says you just keep acting. Do it all the time and eventually it will happen. He got his break, after all, by taking a role nobody else wanted. A cannibal!

Never give up. You only get one life. Go for it!

I am drawn to writing and directing as it is most like the feeling I had when I was a teenager with my puppet theatre. You are more in control of everything and involved in every aspect of production, so more challenged and fulfilled.

Ensure that your script is watertight. If it's not on the page, it will never magically appear on the screen.

Proving yourself in a field where the casualty rate is so notoriously high is an ongoing challenge.

Always have an answer - even if you change your mind five minutes later.

Time and time again I was told that I would never make the film on time and never make it on budget. That kind of criticism tends to turn me into a great big motor of efficiency.

Anthony Hopkins says you just keep acting. Do it all the time and eventually it will happen. He got his break, after all, by taking a role nobody else wanted. A cannibal!

My father died prematurely at the age of 52 when I was 24, and it is a recurring regret that he never lived to see me succeed beyond university and drama.

Actors always think that others are getting more work than them. In my case, they usually are.

I am a very judgmental person. Of myself and other people. I recognise it's a great fault, but I have no power over that.

I don't think it's the case that 'posh actors' get more work than others.

I like fixing things.

I place an enormous premium on loyalty. If someone betrays me, I can forgive them rationally, but emotionally I have found it impossible to do so.

I watch TV all the time. Everything.

I would love to play your common, everyday guy, but I never get cast as that.

I would still like to go to the moon before I die.

I'm a hoarder.

It always depresses me when people moan about how commercial Christmas is. I love everything about it. The tradition of having this great big feast, slap bang in the middle of winter, is an essential thing to look forward to at the end of the year.

The fashion world is much more ephemeral than the film industry and moves at a faster pace, and it's got even more frenetic since the Nineties; more paparazzi hanging about and it seems to me there are even more fashion magazines.

Unless you are an enormous name, you never stop auditioning.

Well, it's true that I've never been solitary, although I spend a lot of time alone. I've never felt lonely or been shy.

When I came to England, the first director I met was Charles Sturridge, who told me, 'You speak like somebody out of the 1950s.'

When I meet a couple, I'm always interested to know if they have been together for a long time, or how loyal they are, because I know that will impact on how much I'm prepared to trust them.

You feel your game's raised by working with the best people.

Never give up. You only get one life. Go for it

Never give up. You only get one life. Go for it.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

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.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.

It's a living, breathing thing, acting.

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific.

Plastic surgery and breast implants are fine for people who want that, if it makes them feel better about who they are. But, it makes these people, actors especially, fantasy figures for a fantasy world. Acting is about being real being honest.

I don't see my dancing or acting as two separate things. I don't define them separately, so I can't say one has helped the other, It's all the same thing. More than anything I love being on stage and performing.

In any case, his judgment and set of values, acting alone or through his assistants, determine not only what is gold and what is dross but the design of the history which he creates out of the metal. The historian decides what is significant, and what is not.