Quotes from John Rhys-Davies

Spying is a like a game of chess: Sometimes you have to withdraw, sometimes you have to sacrifice one of your pieces to win - preferably a knight rather than a king or queen.

'Shogun' was a mini-series, so even though it went on television, we filmed it like a movie.

If you've gotta follow a fashion, pick a good fashion, I say, yes.

The script of 'Shogun' was so tight that you could not take a word out of a sentence, you could not take a sentence out of a scene, and you certainly couldn't take out a scene without putting ripples right through the back or the front of the overall story.

People have become disillusioned with Parliament, and that threatens democracy.

To be an actor for 30-odd years trying to become recognized, and to end up playing a full prosthetic and a character 3 foot 9', or something like that, is... well, it just shows that you can get actors to do anything.

If you cannot have fun on a set and enjoy what you're doing, you're better off giving it up.

Just think about it: in every shop in the reading world since 1956, there has been two feet of book-space devoted to Tolkien.

I think your children are your measure of success, regardless of work and career.

When the writers themselves are a bit out of control, and their lives are collapsing around them, they seem to rejoice in misery and celebrate the wrong sort of things.

Sometimes a writer just needs a hook.

The most despised sector of Hollywood are the writers. A good writer is quickly promoted to a 'concept man' - and then a producer - because he's too valuable to simply be a writer.

As I come towards the end of my life, you get to see things in a slightly different perspective.

Actually, I'm addicted to science fiction. Let me make my diction clear - I love sci-fi.

Basically, theater or film is a dangerous industrial environment.

When you think about a walking tree, laughter is the response.

I'm a little smarter than most.

To experience the unique sense of elation that you have when your child is sleeping on your chest in an incomparable emotion.

I like heroes, and would like to be a hero myself. I suppose we all want that.

A solitary child growing up in Africa, you're really quite dependent on books.

With a bad script and even the best cast, the most you can hope for is to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

I think I have more stamps in my passport than most stamp collectors have in their collections.

The universe starts off with the Big Bang theory, and the first thing that emerged from the Big Bang is essentially hydrogen and then helium. And that's what combusts in stars. Finally, stars implode, and they build heavier elements out of that. And those heavier elements are reconstituted in the heart of other stars, eventually.

Faith is not a rational thing, and yet to understand the universe, rationality alone will not give it to us. Our understanding of the universe must transcend the rational.