I was a window dresser for Burton's once. What really put me off was the area manager coming round and saying, Charles, I think you're a natch at this.

You have to be selfish to be an actor.

I'm playing one of the principal roles, which gives you more clout and more confidence.

I'm actually as common as mud. I'm not particularly well read, or bred. But the way I look... I seem to have this sort of 'aristocratic' demeanor.

It's a question of keeping one's eyes and ears open and watching how other people play the game. They're watching me too, to see what my attitude is like.

A handful of older, romantic leading men, like Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, and Robert Redford are still landing parts.

I spent a lot of time [between takes] apologising to Peter Dinklage [Dance's on-screen son, Tyrion Lannister] because I treat him appallingly.

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

A car to pick me up every day, a chair with my name on it, everybody being very polite... what can you do except sit back and watch it all, try to take it all in?

Power is always a corrupting influence. In this mythical time - let's call it medieval, feudal - people in power are dictatorial and don't want their positions of power to be threatened.

When you get to a certain age, the work begins to thin out.

Your money does not define your standard, your personality does.

There is only one history of any importance and it is the history of what you once believed in and the history of what you came to believe in.

Time is the best killer.

I think the Internet has a way of coaching you into this state of mind where you think that every step you make needs to completely supersede the last.

[Kaz] is a great scholar, very funny - a true man of no rank!

A person like me... isn't even worth the tip of a toe. I can't even compare to half.

It's important to push yourself further than you think you can go each and every day - as that is what separates the good from the great.

Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears, Groping our way along the downward slope of Years!

People pay me for my thoughts and my dreams. I think in that sense I'm very fortunate.

Quite possibly, what I call happiness may coincide with what others call the moment of imminent danger