We are very lucky to be men because women have a terrible time getting older parts. It's much more difficult.

Try and understand what part you have to play in the world in which you live. There's more to life than you know and it's all happening out there. Discover what part you can play and then go for it.

I often thought my gravestone would say, 'Here lies Gandalf. He came out,'

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different.

To know you are in the company with people who love and care for each other, as well as for whatever they are working on, is almost essential.

I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.

You can always pick out stage actors at the Oscars: they know how to walk.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

When you were on stage, you could be absolutely open about your emotions and indulge them and express yourself in a way that - in real life - I wasn't doing.

Splendid architecture, the love of your life, an old friend... they can all go drifting by unseen if youre not careful.

In fact, my face has shrunk in the meantime, but it won't be particularly noticeable because it's covered up with hair. So I hope I'm not alarmed if I ever do sit through the five movies.

It can be exhausting eating a meal cooked by a man. With a woman, it's, Ho hum, pass the beans. A guy, you have to act like he just built the Taj Mahal.

What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.

I've been a philanthropist for all my life, and... I've had many involvements in humanitarian and environmental issues.

My desk is covered with talismans: pieces of rose quartz, wishing stones from a favorite beach.

Our inability to relate to one another is very, very, very important. When we don't have it, we get situations like Bosnia

To me, lighting really sets the mood for a room. A 40 watt bulb in a cheap lamp is the same as a 40 watt bulb in an expensive one.

Poor people make a very poor business of it when they try to seem rich.

A guy who makes a new chair doesn't owe money to everyone who ever built a chair.

One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.

Ideas are the only things that count, and politicians are, for the most part, pretty much irrelevant.