Quotes from Richard Attenborough

And I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

I know I'm regarded as an establishment figure, but I was crucified by the establishment for 'Oh! What a Lovely War', 'Gandhi' and 'Cry Freedom.'

I think there were times when, if circumstances had developed, I might have been tempted into politics. I am a fan of Tony Blair. I think Gordon Brown is a fine man, but I think he's headed for one hell of a bloody struggle.

And that is how I employ my time in cinema, saying things about people who I think have touched us in terms of our value judgement and by example.

I have no great interest in being remembered as a great creative filmmaker.

At my age the only problem is with remembering names. When I call everyone darling, it has damn all to do with passionately adoring them, but I know I'm safe calling them that. Although, of course, I adore them too.

I'm 4 ft. 2 in. and not exactly a matinee idol.

Throughout my life, I always remember that consideration of people who were less fortunate than we. We lived in an atmosphere of awareness, and we certainly did not live a life whereby we ignored, or felt that we could ignore, that which was in evidence around us.

I'm simply saying that heroes are people whose activities, whose attitudes, and whose judgment you just think, 'Wow. That's good. That's right. That's real.'

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that's ever lived. He lived in the 18th century; as you all know, he was an Englishman who was involved in the writing of American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, the French Constitution, wrote the great book called 'The Rights of Man' - commercial over.

When me and Sheila got married, all we had was an oval table, four chairs, a bed, and a painting by Matthew Smith.

Say what you will about 'Miracle on 34th Street'; I can take my grandchildren to it. If I had a maiden aunt, I could take her, or my ma and pa if they were alive.

I lived in an atmosphere where Mama brought 60 Basque refugee children to England during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

There's nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

'Gandhi' was a well-made film but surely not my best. It had flaws, which I understand two-and-a-half decades after I directed it. I will never call it a propaganda film for the Indian Congress, but it could have been made better had I concentrated on certain minute details.

David has asked me, a number of people have asked me and said, What performance do you like best or what's the best film you've made and so on and I don't really have any hesitation that the film I'm least embarrassed by and ashamed of or uneasy about is Shadowlands.

If you are playing in 'Charley's Aunt,' and your favourite aunt died that lunchtime, you'll still have to go on the stage and play 'Charley's Aunt.'

And there are certain things, and they are evident, obviously, without being boring about it, but I mean obviously, the two evident and easy ones being Gandhi and Cry Freedom, there are things which I do care about very much and which I would like to stand up and be counted.

I adore my family; they are my joy. However, I am committed to my work. If, on a Saturday morning when I was ostensibly going to be with the children, and something arose at RADA or at UNICEF or at the orphanage or whatever, I would allow the other pressures to take precedent.

I was on my own union council for twenty-odd years.

I'm a passionate trade unionist.

Well, you cannot think of cinema now, and you cannot think of cinema in the UK and not place Chaplin in the most extraordinary elevated context, if there can be such a thing, in that he was a genius, he was unique.