“The degree of notoriety I have is fine and easy. There’s nothing hysterical about it.”

I never go on the net or the web, or whatever it’s called.

If you ask any actor “What single thing would make you really, really happy?” Among the top five things they’d say is not having to audition anymore.

All actors who have been around for a long time, which I have, and have been skint for long periods, which I have, find it difficult to turn down jobs. If I turn anything down my stomach turns over. I feel sick. It feels like gambling.

I’m crazy about James Brown. I’m crazy about soul music. And then the blues. Rhythm and blues.

The most difficult part, when you decide to make running a part of your life style, is the basic initial commitment.

When people warned me there would be long periods out of work if I became an actor, I couldn’t keep a straight face because that was exactly what I had in mind.

One is that you legislate according to natural selection, the other is that you don’t. You have compassion, you try and help people. It’s a fundamental clash between two people who happen to love each other, which complicates everything.

I don’t normally watch films I’m in because I’m squeamish about that and it takes me quite a long time to recover and I have to go to work. I’m not being coy or cute, but it’s just true.

I’m probably the only person who actually remembers pirate radio.

I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.

If I ruled the world, every woman would have a Chanel suit in her wardrobe.

I don’t want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.

I do think 3D has seriously improved, since I was a boy. It’s fabulous.

When you are in something that you’re proud of and it’s funny and it’s a good night out and all of those things, there’s nothing quite like it. The rewards are proportionate to the amount of alarm and distress it causes you.

Prince, who is a genius of the highest order, can come back up while singing and playing the guitar.

I like being in kids’ movies, and I like being in family movies.

The last degree of love is when He gave Himself to us to be our Food; because He gave Himself to be united with us in every way.

The difference is no less real because it is of degree.

We’ve poisoned our planet to a desperate degree. We have no idea of how severe the toxification is.

[Sherlock Holmes] has moved from being someone who was sociopathic, work-obsessed and slightly amoral, into being someone who has a certain degree of a private life, which is very, very private, with The Woman, or Irene Adler.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

I used to be so hard on myself. So hard on myself. Just my own worst critic to the nth degree.

I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.

I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty.