“A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.”

I guess I’m pretty much of a lone wolf. I don’t say I don’t like people at all, but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds.

You can’t make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.

The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.

That is different, to have someone think that I am evil when I really am not.

I don’t have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.

Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.

Women have a predestination to suffering.

Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.

Death, the final, triumphant lover.

I have lived too completely. I think I have known every human emotion.

When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.

It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing.

It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role.

Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.

In the studio the director controls the actor’s every move, every inflection, every expression.

I’d like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person.

They say behind every successful man is a powerful woman. And there is no more powerful performer I would rather be in the ring with for a conversation than Stephanie McMahon.

Do you see how the candle light glows as it performs its life purpose. Let your heart be the candlelight.

In film, other actors’ performances really are not your concern. If the other actor isn’t giving you what you want, act as though he were.

A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.

You look at driving down the road, night after night, tryin’ to make a town, getting $25 – that’s hard times. It’s our duty to make it good times for the fans that pay their money to see us perform each and every night.

Running my show is really like an actor being in repertory but where, in one day in one performance, you do scenes from a drama, a farce, a low comedy and a tragedy.

I look at old performance videos now, and it’s really funny – I thought I was such a gangster!

You stand your ground and you perform your art. That’s what the artist does. The artist is about perfection.