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

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.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

To do the Ozzfest again would be great. I'd like to finish with a final Sabbath album. You always feel that it is still a challenge.

People are not perfect... very often the relationships that are strongest are those where people have worked through big crises, but they've had to work through them. So the challenge to us is to work through that.

Every single book is a challenge.

Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

The lopsided attitudes of college professors pose a serious challenge to learning because students are so susceptible to becoming lopsided sheep.

I really enjoy comedy. It's a real challenge.

I had a hard time with that hockey. I hadn't grown up skating, so that was my biggest challenge. We worked on it and worked on it. But then when we first shot it, it was so hard for me.

The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible.

Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you.

My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see.

I'd say that it's important for music to be there that gives you a challenge, that rearranges things in your head.

I like good stories. Quality products and character are what's important. Even if the script isn't that strong, if I challenge myself with a great character, I'll go for it.

I tend to arrive in the rehearsal process with very strongly developed ideas about what I want to do. But I don't like those ideas to be things that are not subject to change, or subject to development, or subject to challenge.

I'm not looking to set a standard... but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.

If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn't worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge, because it's life or death.

And, I'd never done Tennessee Williams, and I had done Broadway musicals, so it was a challenge.

When you remove the risk, you remove the challenge. When you remove the challenge, you wither on the vine.

After Land I wanted to continue exploring the theme but I needed a new challenge so turned to colour. I explored Bradford and produced a series of urban landscapes that I liked, but because Land had made such an impact on the general public my colour work wasn't reviewed.

The worlds I paint leave a lot to engage the imagination by hinting at what lies beyond the four edges of the painting. I think getting beyond the four edges of an opportunity or challenge is one of the basic skills you need in business.

For me, it's a bigger challenge, it's much harder to do and much more rewarding to do well, then just to think up stuff of your own, hit or miss, because you've got to see to it that you don't torpedo any of his punch lines.

This same habitual blindness to spiritual, substantive dimensions of every significant challenge continues to handicap Hollywood.