I never saw myself as Mr. Ugly, but I'm not that handsome. I can sort of be made to look quite a lot better or quite a lot worse.

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment.

I'm fully aware that if I were to change professions tomorrow, become an astronaut and be the first man to land on Mars, the headlines in the newspapers would read: 'Mr. Darcy Lands on Mars.

I would rather five people knew my work and thought it was good work than five million knew me and were indifferent.

My singing voice is somewhere between a drunken apology and a plumbing problem.

My grandmother was a minister as well, which was not that common in the 1930s.

My looks aren't something that come dazzlingly through in everything I do. I can be made to look one way or the other fairly easily... I am still not recognised on the street that much.

I like playing strange characters. Some people might say it has something to do with a hidden part of myself, but I think it's a lot simpler than that: normal people are just not very interesting.

I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that's when you come over all humbug. It's happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you.

Whenever you take on playing a villain, he has to cease to be a villain to you. If you judge this man by his time, he's doing very little wrong.

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally, there are exceptions... the Jewish, Italian, and Irish humor of the East Coast.

May you find grace to accomplish your God given-goals.

You are young, " replied Athos, "and your bitter memories have time to change into sweet ones.

All cell phones in the air 'cause I want to see you guys shine.

Religion is dogmatic. Politic is ideological. Reason must be logical, but literature has a privilege of being equivocal.

A man can do anything he wants to do in this world, at least if he wants to do it badly enough.

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

I begin each book with a challenge to myself.

Intellectual understanding blocks empathy.

I've been giving free money seminars for the troops at Walter Reed Hospital and one of the Iraqi War Vets realized that the military wouldn't pay for the dental work he needed.

Israel is a start-up nation, and I think it can be done in other places. I will do it outside the government. I don't need the government.