John Quotes

If I hadn't been a part of [Harry Potter] I would have been deeply upset.

This whole theory of alienation that intellectuals have been passing on, really is just to stop a lot of ham acting. If you fill something with a proper emotion, it didn't worry him at all.

The image onscreen takes you forward, it's the driving force of the piece and it's also the information that you're given.

I thought ['Sailcloth'] was a terrific script. Elfar Adalsteins, the director, is bound to be a director we'll hear from, and the whole thing was really enjoyable.

I've done lots of films with first directors, so it's not unusual for me.

I'd say the film to avoid is a director's second film, particularly if his first film was a big success. The second film is where you've really needed to have learned something.

One wonders sometimes, looking at the world, how it's dealing with itself. There are days when you wake up and you feel very optimistic and there are days when you feel pessimistic.

I love working with Lars [von Trier]! I've worked with him three times. I did the narration of Dogville and Manderlay.

From John Huston to Fred Zinnemann and Richard Fleischer and all those great American directors.

With [Fred] Zinnemann I did A Man For All Seasons. He was my screen godfather. I'm happy to say he was.

[Alfred] Hitchcock was very interested in the image on the screen.As is any good cinema director. That is the language they speak. It is not literature, it is images on screen.

I stopped asking a long time ago, "why would you want me to play that?" I'm an actor. That's what I do.

I've got plenty of train memories. I was sent to school when I was eight years old in 1948 in Kent. So I had to go through London in 1948, just after the war. Many ,many strange experiences.

There may be arrangements to have me retired but I don't know. Things happen that I enjoy doing, and as long as I enjoy doing them I'll go about doing them, I guess.

If you put on an Oscar Wilde [play], it will interest those who are interested in Oscar Wilde. But it won't interest anybody else, because they won't get that wit.

Bong Joon-ho is enormously sensitive to performance. He knows what he needs to see and that's all he needs to shoot. He is so daring. We don't do that in the west. We shoot everything.

In the States it's more and more difficult to get an independent film off the ground, and you certainly wont get the opportunity to play something like that in a studio movie.

I'm very director oriented.

Lotte Lenya was all emotion. She wasn't anything but emotion. She was not an intellectual.

It's amazing how quickly human beings adapt, isn't it? It was such a great crew, and David [Lynch] was wonderful to work with [on 'The Elephant Man']. It was a very thrilling time, actually.

I left drama school and went straight into a 10-week film for which I was paid £75 I might say, which for 1962 was one heck of a lot of money.

I wanted to work with those boys (producers Andy and Larry Wachowski) because they're so eccentric and peculiar. Larry, of course, is halfway towards being a woman now. It's a crazy world.

My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...

I was keen on sports-that's how my nose got this way. It's not actually broken; the nose was just pushed up a little bit and moved over. It's an aquiline nose, quite Irish.

We're all far too afraid of being so arrogant to say "Either you can or you can't."

Whenever something is convenient or was modified after 1970, you probably shouldn't use it as root.

You're good, you're real good.

I really only became an editor, or started doing my own editing because I was filming the docs and you simply can't keep an editor on for as long as it takes so.

There is nothing wrong with saving the world, but it's a little boring.

I can talk about film theory forever and it may sound pretentious or something, but really it's just that I'm fascinated by it.

[Pope Francis] has reminded us that the way we live our lives is the most important expression of our Catholic identity.

To the extent that we sow love where there is hate and light where there is darkness, each in his or her own walk in life, we can heal, enlighten, and unify.

We have perhaps all said things in unguarded moments that we would not want printed in newspapers.

Worst thing about Al Smith dinner : it was another reminder of how far we are from the amity between opposing sides that is needed for effective governance.

I've never met anyone who has changed his mind or deepened his faith because he has been confronted with such angry condemnations.

Best thing about Al Smith dinner: Cardinal Dolan got the candidates together for a brief prayer before going out on the stage.

No doubt the [presedential] campaigns have reflected some anxiety, anger, and resentment in the nation at large, and we must try to understand these attitudes in the electorate.

Don’t let anyone say you can’t do it. To be successful, you need to fail. The more failures you have, the more successes you will have. People just don’t get that.

Don't let anyone say you can't do it.

It takes a lot more to run a good business than just trailing commissions or kickbacks otherwise everybody would succeed, wouldn't they?

We react very quickly in the market. We can make quick changes.

Human sexuality makes farcical our most serious intentions.

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.

It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.

Kids are perfect people till grownups get their hands on them.

Adolescence-is it the first time in life we discover that we have something terrible to hide from those who love us?

Nothing moves at the Hotel New Hampshire! We're screwed down here-for life!

If I had to be anything," he told her, "I'd probably be a socialist, but I don't want to be anything.

If you feel strongly about people having abortions, don't have one. But we are a country - USA - that likes to be punitive. We want to restrict. It is a kind of religious fervor run amuck.

As it was, things went from bad to worse, as they often will when amateurs are involved in an activity that they perform in bad temper – or in a hurry.