“I think life has got to develop as you get older, and I don’t want to be wandering along doing the same old thing. I want more out of life.”

Acting is not a competition; everything must be done for the good of the film or else everybody loses.

I don’t see myself as anything. I just wander around getting on with my life.

First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

Be patient.Of course it will come. It took me years to get an Oscar.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

There was a certain moment. I was about 61 – two, three or four, and I got a script. And I sent it back to the producer saying – “I don’t wanna do it. The part’s too small.” And he sent it back to me, he said, “You shouldn’t read the lover. You should read the father.

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

I never look back at all. All of my sentiment and emotion goes into my family. I’m an extremely family oriented person and I have a very, very happy family life. That doesn’t just include blood relations. I have friends who are close to me.

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I’m my own most vicious critic. So I’m always trying to do it better.

It’s a lesson in life – don’t look back, you’ll trip over.

My father was a fish market porter. So I grew up on fish, because he used to steal one a day, I grew up on the very best fish that money could buy, ’cause he only stole the good stuff.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can’t deal with a woman of their own age.

It’s much harder to act in a bad film than in a good one. A terrible script makes for very difficult acting. You can win an Academy Award for some of the easiest acting in your career, made possible by a brilliant script.

Use the difficulties – if you can’t avoid them

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

When you reach the top, that’s when the climb begins.