“I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.”

It’s vital to have your own space so you aren’t constantly in each other’s pockets.

I’m every bourgeois nightmare – a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I’m pig-headed.

You start pretending to have fun, you might have a little by accident.

I don’t think human beings are bad. They’re weak. And that’s what makes ’em bad.

Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you’ve had a life like mine, you have to.

Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.

As an actor, my attitude towards using of film versus digital is, if you have film, filmmakers have to cut eventually so you don’t have to learn all that dialogue. With digital, they can just go on forever and it’s a nightmare. So, I like film – nice short takes.

My understanding of women goes only as far as the pleasures.

Don’t sit as if you have nothing to say. You should be bursting with things to say. You just choose at this particular place and time, not to say them.

I’m the audience’s representative on earth.

Do you know that the harder thing to do and the right thing to do are usually the same thing? Nothing that has meaning is easy,”Easy” doesn’t enter into grown-up life.

The trouble with women? Elbows.

I’ve had such a great time, I’d like to come back as me – and do it all over again.

I always exposed the weakness rather than the nastiness.

A man should dress in a way that you don’t notice. He looks good and you don’t know why. But it’s the tailoring, the materials, and the clothes.

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary.

I like books that aren’t just lovely but that have memories in themselves.

Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.

Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.

It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have.

Words have a lot of power.

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

When I first thought about writing the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I never originally meant to have children in it at all!