When I work with young people, I grab energy from them by the handsful.
— Peter O'Toole
Actors have to stay optimistic. The moment we start thinking otherwise, we're dead.
I can make the best French toast.
My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.
The only exercise I take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise.
Writing is a kind of performing art, and I can't sit down to write unless I'm dressed. I don't mean dressed in a suit, but dressed well and comfortably and I have to be shaved and bathed.
We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure.
My own favorite is something called Rogue Male.
It's very inconvenient because every time I finish, let's say, a chapter of a book, I think I'm going to ring Richard and then realize: Oh, Christ, I've buried him. I buried him last year.
I'm a working stiff, baby, just like everybody else.
I tell my children to avoid theatre and go into cinema and TV.
I have no memories I'm prepared to share with you.
I've stopped acting, but I don't think I've finished using my voice. I could, and probably will, record the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets. They live at the side of my bed and are my constant companions.
Always a bridesmaid never a bride my foot!
I woke up one morning to find I was famous. I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard, wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum.
It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won't come back.
Irish women are always carrying water on their heads, and always carrying their husbands home from pubs. Such things are the greatest posture-builders in the world.
Where do I begin? I loved working with Kate Hepburn, which was one of the highlights of my life; Working with Richard Burton in Beckett was another great joy.
There is a legend. And to protest is daft.
My dear sir, it haunted me for the rest of my life.
It's my job, it's what I do, it's what I'm on earth to do and it's who I am.
I wouldn't mind being a lord.
I loved doing My Favorite Year, which was great fun, and The Ruling Class, which I made with all my chums.
I'm the most gregarious of men and love good company, but never less alone when alone.
The only thing I've ever been interested in teaching anyone in life is cricket.
The common denominator of all my friends is that they're dead.
I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony.
I can't stand light. I hate weather.
For me, life has either been a wake or a wedding.
We were in the Arabian Desert for nine months. And I was having the time of my life. It could have been an archeological expedition, a military expedition.
The good parts are the people who don't make do. They're the interesting people. Lear doesn't make do.
Life turned out much better than I thought. I knew after a little while that I could act.
If I'm not at my study by 10:00, 10:30, forget it, I can't write a word.
I was apprehensive about bringing off this Homer.
I love working with young people which to me is a big kick.
Films were never in my budget. Didn't occur to me till much later. I hoped for a long, good life, which I've had and I'm having as an actor. I didn't expect the rest.
