A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.

There are some actors who are rehearsal actors, and some who are not. I am not. Having said that, I don't know what I am talking about.

I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

There's no subtext in Harry Potter really; it's all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.

Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

Television has dried up for my generation, so its plays and films.

There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

Fulfil the needs of the soul, which travels beyond the death and which will survive the extinction of the world.

We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.

The essence of compassion is a desire to alleviate the suffering of others and to promote their well-being

You don't have that much choice in your life, which is one of the big lessons I've learned. I was going to be a designer whether I wanted to be a designer or not. So there I was.

The poet will not be satisfied with recording, the poet will have to transform.

Snow in April is abominable," said Anne. "Like a slap in the face when you expect a kiss.

By nature I will find hope in everything. Even if it's the most incredibly hopeless situation or circumstance. That's just me... I'll never be able to see things any other way.

If you really want you people to innovate, buy a science fiction book, tear off the covers, and tell them it's history.

I see only defects because I'm not following the scene as it were. I'm not following the other person. It's like the best thing to clarify this is the theater.

Every book takes you to the terror, that terrible place of possible failure.