Quotes from Alan Rickman

I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller-coaster parks.

Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.

Talent is an accident of genes — and a responsibility.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.

I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.

I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.

From my experience, I think that every actor has to make sure that they're in charge of their own career somehow or other.

You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognises something about themselves or they don't — You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking, "That was nice...now where's the cab?

Actors are actually very supportive of each other.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.

What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word [...] - a jouuuuuurney.

I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.

I've learned, having been on a lot of sets, the good news is that by definition you are surrounded by experts. They get fired if they're not - unlike in the theatre!

I always feel that when I come to Edinburgh, in many ways I am coming home.

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.

It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.

When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.

I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.