Alan Rickman Quotes Page 2

“I was a student in London in the '70s, so CBGB really wasn't on my radar at all. Obviously, I was aware of the emergence of the Police in England and as an art student, I was very aware of David Byrne, but I suppose my musical taste at that time certainly didn't stretch towards the Dead Boys or the Ramones.”

“I'm a lot less serious than people think.”

“I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.”

“I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.”

“I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.”

“If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.”

“If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.”

“If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.”

“If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.”

“It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.”

“It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.”

“My idea of a real treat is Magic Mountain without standing in line.”

“My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.”

“Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.”

“Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And there's a whole bunch of teenagers who only want to talk about 'Dogma.”

“On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.”

“Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing – if I was lucky. Then along came movies.”

“Parts win prizes, not actors.”

“So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.”

“Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.”

“Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility.”

“The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.”

“The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club – or whatever the music was at that time – would not have been on my agenda.”

“The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. Or, what's impossible? What's a fantasy?”

“The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.”

“There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.”

“Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.”

“What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.”

“When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.”

“You try to find things that are challenging and interesting and hopefully it will be the same to the audience.”