I was born William. My father was William. I came from a big family, I hated being called Billy. Willem's a nickname; it's a Dutch name, very common in the Netherlands.

The worst thing is to get involved with people who aren't passionate about what they're doing.

The English Patient' is about the coming together of a French-Canadian nurse, an English patient, a Sikh in a turban and me, Caravaggio, and each of us is seeking a resolution to our own problems.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

I never act. I simply bring out the real animal that's in me.

Sometimes I think women are lucky because they can develop in ways men can't. The old-boy network may be oppressive to women, but it actually stunts men in terms of personal growth.

The mask can be a limitation, but you just deal with it. You do get superhuman strength and pumpkin bombs and all this other stuff to express yourself with.'

You have to lose yourself to find yourself.

Action breeds inspiration more than inspiration breeds action.

I guess they often cast me as the bad guy, because I'm not, er, conventional looking. I look sort of violent. I'm the odd one out, the outsider.

You can be intuitive when you've got a more expansive role. You can get into the poetry of telling the story rather than just pushing buttons.

What you don't think about when you're planning for children is when you're going to teach them how not to be killed

Strong people alone know how to organize their suffering so as to bear only the most necessary pain.

As with the future, it is not all at once but grain by grain that one savours the past.

According to Joss [Whedon], “TV is a question, movies are an answer.

I think this is a very good look at how to tackle this effort. The resources and the talent are here, but now we've got to move forward with some sort of direction.

Napster's only alleged liability is for contributory or vicarious infringement. So when Napster's users engage in noncommercial sharing of music, is that activity copyright infringement? No.

At this time is freedom anything but the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.

The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.

Prana (life energy) colored by the tought of the sender may be projected to persons at a distance, who are willing to receive it, and the healing can be done this way.

I find sadness and strife to be so much more interesting with an upbeat melody.