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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I wouldn't mind being a lord.

No one ever watched competitive swimming.

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

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

I was apprehensive about bringing off this Homer.

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

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

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

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

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