Anthony Hopkins Quotes Page 2

“I love life because what more is there?”

“I love roller coasters. I don't get a chance often, but I've gone to Magic Mountain and gone on the rides. I love roller coasters.”

“I never make conscious decisions.”

“I once asked a Jesuit priest what was the best short prayer he knew. He said 'F*ck it'. as in 'F*ck it, it's in Gods hands'.”

“I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.”

“I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort – I think it keeps you going.”

“I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart – they were wonderful actors. They didn't act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.”

“I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one's nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.”

“I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.”

“I was bullied as a boy – lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.”

“I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.”

“I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.”

“I wouldn't use the word 'scared' for my role as Hitchcock, but it was my most insecure. Taking on such a formidable, giant personality such as Hitchcock; he was one of the great geniuses of world cinema. Sheer genius.”

“I'm a pretty tough guy, you know. I'm a pretty hard man. I've got a lot of compassion, but I don't waste time with people.”

“I'm always cast in these strange men... that's not me, really.”

“I'm devious, cruel, cunning and addictive.”

“I'm fascinated by the fact that we can't grasp anything about time.”

“I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.”

“I'm not a health freak. I just work out every day.”

“I'm one of the slowest drivers on the road. I mosey along. If you're doing anything too fast, including living life too fast, that creates sudden death. If I have to be somewhere on time, I make sure I leave early enough.”

“I'm very much a loner. I don't like long relationships with people and I always keep people at a distance.”

“I've been composing music all my life and if I'd been clever enough at school I would like to have gone to music college.”

“I've felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother, who always felt like an outsider in my father's family. She was a powerful woman, and she motivated my father.”

“I've got a great sense of humor.”

“I've got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I've done it.”

“I've had no contact with my daughter for years. That's her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don't want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.”

“If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.”

“If you do things, whether it's acting or music or painting, do it without fear – that's my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there's nothing to lose.”

“In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.”

“It will be the kiss by which all others in your life will be judged... and found wanting.”