Anthony Hopkins

“For me, time is the greatest mystery of all. The fact is that we're dreaming all the time. That's what really gets me. We have a fathomless lake of unconsciousness just beneath our skulls.”

“I don't have a vast longing for the stage.”

“I have dual citizenship; it just so happens I live in America. I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood, and at least three times a week dream I am back there.”

“Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.”

“I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I'm a philistine. I like the good life too much; I'm not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.”

“I love roller coasters. I don't get a chance often, but I've gone to Magic Mountain and gone on the rides. I love roller coasters.”

“I'm most suspicious of scripts that have a lot of stage direction at the top of the page... sunrise over the desert and masses of... a whole essay before you get to the dialogue.”

“The Welsh people have a talent for acting that one does not find in the English. The English lack heart.”

“Relish everything that's inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.”

“My father wasn't a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher - one of those Victorians, hard as iron - but my dad was tough enough.”

“The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.”

“Life's too short to deal with other people's insecurities.”

“I don't have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don't know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don't know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don't think you need all that stuff.”

“Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.”

“I come from - I came from Wales, and it's a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with - life's too short.”

“We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist.”

“I've had no contact with my daughter for years. That's her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don't want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.”

“I came here in 1974 to do a play, and then I went to L.A. I really like living in America. I feel more at home here than anywhere else.”

“I hope I would not be so arrogant as to doubt anyone's religion or belief.”

“I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.”