I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable.

I've always said that playing rugby in Spain is like being a bullfighter in Japan.

I do respect people's faith, but I don't respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.

The bad news is that only the bad people reach the news because they are noisier.

I think we are living in selfish times. I'm the first one to say that I'm the most selfish. We live in the so-called 'first world,' and we may be first in a lot of things like technology, but we are behind in empathy.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

Now, there are so many movies, so many festivals, and so many awards going on, each judged with each other, like your work is worse than others and that's not fair. How can you tell what's best and what's worst from these awards? We're talking about art.

I have this problem with violence. I've only done one movie in almost 20 years where I killed people. It's called Perdita Durango. It's a Spanish movie. I'm very proud of the movie, but I felt weird doing that.

Everybody in Spain is sick of me. But in America, there's curiosity about the new kid on the block who doesn't speak English very well. The attention makes me feel vulnerable, which is something I hadn't felt in a while. But I like it.

I was emotionally and physically punched in the stomach. This is not a place where you go and deliver the lines and then you come back. It's kind of a life-changing experience. But it can't get better than this for any actor - this is like an opera.

When I see myself at 14 years old I can put my hands on my head and think: 'How could I have done that?' but at that time it had sense for me. You do the same when you're 20. And now, when you look at people who are 20 years old you ask yourself: 'Was I like that? Was I really like that?'

And the whole Oscar thing, that is just surreal: you spend months and months doing promotion, and then come back to reality with this golden thing in your hands. You put it in the office and then you just have to look at it sitting on the shelf. And, after about two weeks, you go: 'What is that doing there?'

But I remember the moment when my father died. I wasn't a very committed Catholic beforehand, but when that happened it suddenly all felt so obvious: I now believe religion is our attempt to find an explanation, for us to feel more protected.

I do a job and am lucky enough to do a job that I love, but it is a hard one. I'm not saying it is as hard as working in a coal mine, but it is still difficult in a different way. Sometimes you have to go through very strong emotional journeys and then come back to yourself. And that can be difficult to control.

Imagine the situation between Israel and Palestine. It's such a big mess. You can be on one side or the other. But what's clear is that there's an urgent need for a solution there and that's been dragging on for so long.

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.

The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.

Ignorance is always afraid of change.

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.

Citizenship consists in the service of the country.

You don't change the course of history by turning the faces of portraits to the wall.

The only alternative to coexistence is codestruction.

What we really are matters more than what other people think of us.

I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.

What we need is a generation of peace.

There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.

Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.

Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.

It is a fundamental rule of human life, that if the approach is good, the response is good.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; the way you play it is free will.

Every little thing counts in a crisis.

There is perhaps nothing so bad and so dangerous in life as fear.

Facts are facts and will not disappear on account of your likes.

To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition.

A great disaster is a symbol to us to remember all the big things of life and forget the small things, of which we have thought too much.

It is only too easy to make suggestions and later try to escape the consequences of what we say.

The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.

It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive.

Time is not measured by the passing of yaers but by what one does, what one feels, and what one achieves.

The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

Evil unchecked grows, evil tolerated poisons the whole system.

It is science alone that can solve the problems of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, or a rich country inhabited by starving people... Who indeed could afford to ignore science today? At every turn we have to seek its aid... The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science.

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.

You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.

Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends.

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.

The best and noblest gifts of humanity cannot be the monopoly of a particular race or country; its scope may not be limited nor may it be regarded as the miser's hoard buried underground.

All the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

I am the last Englishman to rule in India.

There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.