When I choose a role it's either because I recognise the man, or that I'm very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don't play him.

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

I think the cinema you like has more to do with silence, and the theater you like has more to do with language.

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.

Family is family over the internet, over Skype, over the telephone. Love is love. You don't have to actually go through some ritual to prove that you love somebody.

Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.

With narration, you have to be very accurate with your voice. It's a good exercise to do.

Equal partners aren't always what we envision as being manifestly equal. Equality can come in many different shapes and sizes and combinations.

I do remember, as a child, that I always imagined, when I was maybe 6 or 7, my fantasy was that everywhere I went I was being followed by an invisible film crew.

They're a very strange lot actors, very strange people.

You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.

... the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril,

The unschooled European mind, inclined to rational reduction, to pigeonholing and simplification, readily pushes everything African into a single bag and is content with facile stereotypes.

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.

I think that the inventors can do anything they want, and nobody can say anything otherwise.

You've got to stay humble and hungry. Just keep working and thank God you have a chance to play in the NBA.

It was all very well for an Englishman like Mr. Fogg to make the tour of the world with a carpet-bag; a lady could not be expected to travel comfortably under such conditions.

Don't let your fear of failing triumph over the joy of participating.

The live concert industry has become corporate-ized.

There is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought.

Sure Man was born to meditate on things, And to contemplate the eternal springs Of God and Nature, glory, bliss and pleasure: That life and love might be his eternal treasure.