Quotes from Jeremy Irons

My feeling, of course, is that it's ludicrous to try to prove God's existence by science. God has nothing to do with science. God has all to do with soul, and who can explain that?

I was not naturally intellectual, but somebody whose interest had to be whetted, still the case sadly.

Sadly, one's parameters are constantly narrowed by one's success.

I keep working with fairly inexperienced directors. You know, if you have a good crew, a good cameraman, you know, I know what I'm doing. If the actors know what they're doing, we can all pull together, and it works.

Godspell was a good leap for me, it was a good shop window.

Now in my theater training I showed no aptitude at all.

Peter Brook's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' I remember seeing. That was pretty early on. And suddenly, I realized how theatrical Shakespeare is, how alive, how wonderful it is when it's opened up by a great director and a great company.

I don't mind getting older. I'm enjoying not having that raging ambition I've had all my life.

Film wise, I invariably look at my work and reckon I could have done it better. I'm also conscious that I'm in a profession where we get more praise than we should compared to the usefulness of what we do.

We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.

There's a great thing about amateur sport: it is purer. And the athletes are not open to so much pressure with amateur sport.

I wanted to become an actor because I wanted to become a gypsy. I wanted to live the gypsy life!

I don't watch a lot of television. I try to watch all the good movies, but I've got about twenty of these television series that I should be watching. I haven't seen 'The Wire.' I haven't seen 'Mad Men.' I haven't seen Kevin's thing. What's that called? 'House of Cards.' I hear it's wonderful.

You can be in love and raise a family wonderfully by not being married, but actually, marriage does give us a strength, because it's quite hard to get out of, and so it makes us fight more to keep it together. If divorce becomes dead easy - which it sort of has - then we don't have that backup. Because, for everybody, relationships are hard.

I think all of society should be a think-tank where you throw ideas about. I had hoped the Internet would help. Actually, what it has done is make everybody go schtum. They're attacked for saying anything. So they say nothing.

Really, ambition has gone. I look for things that tickle my fancy. You begin to see the end of life on the horizon. You think, 'It's not going on forever, this.' Let's make the most of what time I have left.

No, I don't believe in hard work. If something is hard, leave it. Let it come to you. Let it happen.

I envy children who know that they're going to become doctors, know they're going to go into the forces or whatever. I think choice is one of the hardest things, but that's what I try to give my children, to say you can do anything.

I looked at the circus, and I looked at the carnival, at the fun fair. But I looked at sleeping accommodations and decided I was too middle class to put up with that! So then I joined the theater and found I could choose my own bedroom. I loved the atmosphere. I loved that we worked till midnight and didn't start till ten.

I have developed a life which seems to need a relatively high income.

What I try to do as an actor is constantly find that, find ways to risk, find opportunities to fall on my face if it's going to be worth it, and then maybe I'll surprise myself.

I liked the theater. I liked the people. I liked the time that we worked.

I've always tended to play people who relish playing against the rules.

He's a man who... well, one of the great things about Shakespeare is that his characters are inconsistent, and that's something I think makes him a writer above most writers because inconsistency is what we, as people, are full of. We maybe don't see it in ourselves too often, but we are inconsistent.