Quotes from Jeremy Irons

'Lolita' was a great wound in the side for me. I stuck my neck out maybe further than I should have and castigated the studio for not getting behind it.

I think nobody since has written such extraordinary work as Shakespeare writes. The characters he writes are full of inconsistencies, which is a great human quality - I mean, we're all very inconsistent in the way we behave.

I love touching. I always touch people.

And trust, yes, which is important, but that is what I aim towards. Now that is difficult for some people, and with that desire to get things as good as possible, I would say that I'm probably regarded as quite prickly to work with.

Civility, politeness, it's like a cement in a society: binds it together. And when we lose it, then I think we all feel lesser and slightly dirty because of it.

A trip to the mainland was a big event and happened maybe once a year, although now you can get across in a speed boat in seven minutes but then it was a long way away.

I think there's still an appetite among a certain audience to see intelligent movies that have real emotion in them.

A comic book and a straight drama all have the same elements. If you're playing tragedy, you have to be aware of the comedy; if you're playing comedy, you have to be aware of the tragedy. If you're playing comic book, you have to be aware of the reality.

I think the world is much more transparent now, and I think that's probably a good thing. On the other hand, I think it makes it really tough for people who are natural born leaders who could be guiding us and leading our countries.

I had done a fair bit of traveling during the holidays in my school days with my guitar and discovered that I could live on it. Admittedly, I traveled with a sleeping bag but I could always find somewhere to lay my head.

I was the youngest. The yule lamb. The one who always got away without doing the washing up. My sister was four years older, and my brother six years.

Mathematicians are always playing tricks on each other. They're always pulling jokes on each other.

Actors often behave like children, and so we're taken for children. I want to be grown up.

There are wonderful things happening all around the world. From Nova Scotia to Kerala, Bristol to Melbourne, and even in the Philippines, zero waste is on the agenda. I think what's particularly inspiring is when communities don't wait to be told what to do but just go ahead and do it.

I have played characters where I haven't been absorbed - you know, what I call a typical film leading man role where you just have to look gorgeous and be attractive and charming. It bores me. I like a bit of dirt, a bit of sand in the oyster.

When I'm not working, I don't mix with actors, really. I have about two or three friends from theater school, and we call each other and meet. But in the main, no. I'm more happy with musicians or horse riders or sailors.

I do this work, but I am uncomfortable in situations where you're hyped into something you're not. Just because you're in a long limo doesn't mean anything.

Most people are robust. If a man puts his hand on a woman's bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It is communication. Can't we be friendly?

My next step must be to go to drama school. Well, I get into drama school, so I did that.

Americans enjoy uniformity in a way that the British don't; they wanted everybody of a sort of nice chorus line height and here I was, this person who was a good three inches taller than anyone else on the end of the line.

However, I wasn't very good at the sciences, or didn't have a lot of help in the sciences or something but certainly didn't set science for my A level. And when I came to take my A levels I didn't get a good enough result to go to University.

Nowhere are emissions monitored constantly. So the truth is that the real quantity of dioxin emissions from incineration remains unknown.

I believe inanimate objects have a spirit.

I think the job of artists is to stir things up.