Alan Rickman

“I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.”

“Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And ther...”

“On film you put all your energies into a single glance.”

“I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.”

“The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.”

“I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.”

“When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.”

“I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.”

“Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.”

“One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.”

“I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.”

“You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.”

“Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made.”

“Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.”

“Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.”

“I think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.”

“Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.”

“The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that...”

“England in the '60s and the '70s was everything that history has said; it was phenomenally exciting, musically.”

“Parts win prizes, not actors.”