Best 215 quotes of Anthony Hopkins on MyQuotes

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.

Acting is about listening and reacting. John Wayne was right: Acting is just reacting. You don't have to do much - as long as you stay out of the way of others. That's why it works.

Acting is a creative process, and directing and music. I think creative people - and I take myself as a creative person and it doesn't mean you have to be an actor, a musician, or a painter - but I think if you are in a creative profession or a creative business you do have a heightened awareness.

Acting is constricted because you have the lines. But I improvise with it and what I learn on the set. I improvise rhythms and just changes.

Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.

Acting's entertainment. It's not brain surgery.

Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he's terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he's a terrific actor.

And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.

As a Welshman that can't sing, I never feel more proud to be Welsh than when I hear the Treorchy Male Choir - the Master Choir of them all. If I could sing I would apply for membership myself.

At my age, any day above ground and vertical is a good day.

Beware the tyranny of the weak. They just suck you dry.

Certainty is the enemy of mankind. If you're certain about everything, you have the Inquisition, you have Nazis and you have - that certainty is something to be guarded about.

Danger is the spice of life and you’ve got to take a risk now and then…that’s what makes life worthwhile.

Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.

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.

Guilt is the thief of life.

Getting old ain't for the faint of heart.

Hitchcock was such a master of putting on screen things that made you uneasy. Somebody once asked him what frightened him most, and he said the police. He came from a poor background. I think he understood those fears.

How do you play Hannibal Lector? Well just don't move. Scare people by being still.

I always distrust the word art when it is applied to acting.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I always liked to take the plunge, you know, I'd jump in at the deep end and hope that I'd find land somehow, or hope I'd float or survive. That's more or less the way I've gone through my life.

I am a bit of a solitude person - a solitary personality. I like being on my own. I don't have any major friendships or relationships with people.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can't be locked up with anyone for too long.

I am young! Being creative and keeping your brain occupied is very sensible because if you don't you die, slowly.

I believe I am quite amiable and affable and quite fair, and I've rarely worked with people who are the opposite. Moodiness scares me. What gets to me is unkindness. Madness. Unwarranted cruelty through words. People who scream and shout at work. I hate confrontation and violence. I've done it in the past and I don't want to do it again. I guess I want a perfect world.

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 can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.

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.

I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.

I could stay making nice safe BBC movies for the rest of my life, so I decided to risk it. It was a challenge, to work with Oliver Stone.

I'd like to wake up and look like Brad Pitt in the morning, but I don't. I look in the mirror, and I see me.

I do my job, and I do what I’m paid to do and I’m always prepared. I prepare by learning the text so well that when I show up, I’m relaxed and the performance sort of happens. Now whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know... Whatever I say is going to sound very egocentric and self centered anyway so I’d better shut up.

I don't believe in nepotism. I don't much like the idea of parents who interfere.

I don't have any expectations about my films. If they're good, they're good - if they're not, they're not. About 10 years ago, I remember going to see one of my movies - I can't even remember which one now - and everyone was jumping up and down, getting excited, saying what a great film it was going to be. We all went in and watched it, and it was the slowest movie I've ever seen. The next day, the reviews were terrible and half the studio was fired.

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

I don't have many friends; I'm very much a loner. As a child I was very isolated and I've never been really close to anyone.

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.

I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it. I think we ask too many questions of ourselves. We make too much importance of stuff. But I do say to actors when I have taught in classes, or when I sometimes do a talk to a group. I'll say, “If I never acted again, the world wouldn't stop, nor would it stop if I didn't stop acting. That's how important it is. I know it [seems] important when you're young. But I say, “Lighten up. Don't take it all so seriously.” All the gurus and teachers will take your money and run.

I don't know why they gave me a knighthood - though it's very nice of them - but I only ever use the title in the U.S. The Americans insist on it and get offended if I don't.

I don't like mushiness. I'm a very emotional person but I hate sentimentality. I don't like great demonstrations of emotion. But as I'm getting older, I'm getting much more open about all that.

I don't mind being a commodity. It's given me a good life.

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.

I don't push my luck. I don't worry about the results and therefore everything seems to work out well. That's something I've learnt over the years. The whole thing about the acting business is that it's a hit-or-miss game so I keep my distance from it.

I do the best I can - I know my way around [Russian method acting pioneer] Stanislavski, but I can't take myself seriously like that. I respect people who do it, of course. I just think I'm lucky to still be working at 73. You reach a point in life where you just think, "Show up, do your job, make sure the cheque's on the way," and that's it. I'm not hungry to do anything more, really.

I drank a lot, but I wouldn't have missed it. I look back on it as sort of dreary enjoyment, because I don't have to be there anymore.

I enjoy painting. I don't know if I'm good at it, but I paint. I paint very quickly.

If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.