There are so many projects that I've written and had to abort because either I felt too distressed by what I was doing to the people who I was writing about, or they couldn't cope with it because their view of themselves was so far removed from reality.

I wrote a draft of 'Playboy' for Warner Brothers, and it was impossible to really be independent of Hugh Hefner. In the end, Hugh Hefner was unable to take the back seat required to be able to write something about him that I felt I could do.

I'm constantly having to check my conscience about what I'm writing and the responsibility of what I'm saying.

As a European from a different, younger generation, the trauma that was Nixon's presidency never really had a hold over me. For one thing, I never voted for him.

Barack Obama winning the election had an instant impact on everything - race relations, national self-esteem, tolerance. It also had an instant affect on 'Frost/Nixon.' At a stroke, instead of being a piece that reminded people of the agony they were in, it became an uplifting message about the agony they had escaped.

In some shape or form, we do have an emotional connection to our head of state, even if, for the most part, they seem very remote.

Most leading actresses have this energy, this 'Look at me. Here I am.' They're powerful; they're beautiful.

You can't ask someone to act middle-aged. Someone has to bring their own fatigue to it.

There's something about the soul of a country that is somehow connected to the head of state.

Sometimes it's okay for an audience not to understand everything that's going on.

As historians write more and more histories, it's a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy that other historians read their histories and then make synthesis, and certain things just get forgotten and left out and neglected.

Robert Bolt's storytelling is the kind that I grew up with and aspired to.

The films of which I'm most proud I've written are the ones that pivot on forgiveness.

The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise.

I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star.

It's my job, it's what I do, it's what I'm on earth to do and it's who I am.

I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony.

Always a bridesmaid never a bride my foot!

I have unqualified admiration for Brad Pitt.

I woke up one morning to find I was famous. I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard, wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum.

My dear sir, it haunted me for the rest of my life.

There's always a hunger, when you're young, to go from peak to peak and avoid the valleys.

We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure.

If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it.

I'm the most gregarious of men and love good company, but never less alone when alone.

I never found it easy to learn my lines. It was slog, slog, slog.

Films were never in my budget. Didn't occur to me till much later. I hoped for a long, good life, which I've had and I'm having as an actor. I didn't expect the rest.

I've done everything that's possible to be done.

Pope Paul III was the greatest thief in the history of the church.

I had a pretty hilariously gloomy few years in the '70s.

I was apprehensive about bringing off this Homer.

Acting is just being a man. Being human. Not forcing it.

The good parts are the people who don't make do. They're the interesting people. Lear doesn't make do.

No one ever watched competitive swimming.

I wouldn't mind being a lord.

People talk about the '60s, but they were merely a mass production of what the '50s had begun.

My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.

My plumbing is no one's business but my own.

I've stopped acting, but I don't think I've finished using my voice. I could, and probably will, record the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. They live at the side of my bed and are my constant companions.

It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back.

My dad went at 86. A car killed him. He was crossing the road.

I loved doing My Favorite Year, which was great fun, and The Ruling Class, which I made with all my chums.

My favorite food from my homeland is Guinness. My second choice in Guinness. My third choice - would have to be Guinness.

I'm not from the working class. I'm from the criminal class.

It's such a relief for me to sit in front of a tape recorder and not be using it to learn my lines.

It's very inconvenient because every time I finish, let's say, a chapter of a book, I think I'm going to ring Richard and then realize: Oh, Christ, I've buried him. I buried him last year.

I have no memories I'm prepared to share with you.

Life turned out much better than I thought. I knew after a little while that I could act.

I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.

It's a razor's edge, a romance with an old man and a young woman.