The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise.
Peter O'Toole
I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star.
It's my job, it's what I do, it's what I'm on earth to do and it's who I am.
I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony.
Always a bridesmaid never a bride my foot!
I woke up one morning to find I was famous. I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard, wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum.
I have unqualified admiration for Brad Pitt.
My dear sir, it haunted me for the rest of my life.
There's always a hunger, when you're young, to go from peak to peak and avoid the valleys.
We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure.
If you can't do something willingly and joyfully, then don't do it.
I was apprehensive about bringing off this Homer.
I'm the most gregarious of men and love good company, but never less alone when alone.
I never found it easy to learn my lines. It was slog, slog, slog.
Films were never in my budget. Didn't occur to me till much later. I hoped for a long, good life, which I've had and I'm having as an actor. I didn't expect the rest.
I've done everything that's possible to be done.
Pope Paul III was the greatest thief in the history of the church.
My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.
My plumbing is no one's business but my own.
I had a pretty hilariously gloomy few years in the '70s.
Acting is just being a man. Being human. Not forcing it.
I've stopped acting, but I don't think I've finished using my voice. I could, and probably will, record the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. They live at the side of my bed and are my constant companions.
It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back.
The good parts are the people who don't make do. They're the interesting people. Lear doesn't make do.
No one ever watched competitive swimming.
My dad went at 86. A car killed him. He was crossing the road.
I wouldn't mind being a lord.
People talk about the '60s, but they were merely a mass production of what the '50s had begun.
I loved doing My Favorite Year, which was great fun, and The Ruling Class, which I made with all my chums.
My favorite food from my homeland is Guinness. My second choice in Guinness. My third choice - would have to be Guinness.
I'm not from the working class. I'm from the criminal class.
It's such a relief for me to sit in front of a tape recorder and not be using it to learn my lines.
It's very inconvenient because every time I finish, let's say, a chapter of a book, I think I'm going to ring Richard and then realize: Oh, Christ, I've buried him. I buried him last year.
I have no memories I'm prepared to share with you.
Life turned out much better than I thought. I knew after a little while that I could act.
I put steam on the table by being an actor. That is how I live. The longer I live, the more expensive it becomes. So I do my work. And I can't be immensely picky. How many beautiful scripts come in one's lifetime? I have had more than anybody, practically.
It's a razor's edge, a romance with an old man and a young woman.
In my day England, Scotland, Wales had 80 drama schools. There are none left. So there's no training, no discipline.
An Oscar is a symbol that is known in every corner of the world.
I'm Irish. That means I'm Catholic. But, truth is, now I'm a retired Christian.
The only thing I've ever been interested in teaching anyone in life is cricket.
A few years back I was asked if I would go and meet a director and his various acolytes, and it occurred to me halfway through the meeting that what I was doing was auditioning. And I thought, 'Well, hang on buddy. I've done half a century of this.'
I can make the best French toast.
I suggest that an education and reading and facts aren't bad things on which to ponder a few notions.
I've played farce on the stage, but I have never played any sort of comedy on the screen.
No one should ever know where conduct ends and acting begins. Conduct unbecoming. That's what acting is.
I take whatever good part comes along.
The common denominator of all my friends is that they're dead.
All the minor sports injuries you acquire over the years begin to multiply like flies when you get over 70.
My father was a racetrack bookie.
