Quotes from Anthony Hopkins

I don't have a vast longing for the stage.

I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I've stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.

I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.

You have to be pretty tough to be an actor, and you have to be pretty certain what you want. You can't waffle through this business.

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense... I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

Things have changed so much now. Everything is downloaded onto computers. I'm not a computer-savvy guy, but with downloading the movie industry has changed.

If you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, we flirt with death. We pull ourselves to the brink of destruction and if we're lucky we pull ourselves back. We all have that in us.

I'm the slowest driver in the world.

I was called 'Dumbo,' like the elephant, as a child because I couldn't understand things at school.

If you don't follow through on your dreams, you might as well be a vegetable.

Oh yes. I'm an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.

Well, everyone likes movies when they're a little kid.

I don't like mushiness. I'm a very emotional person but I hate sentimentality. I don't like great demonstrations of emotion. But as I'm getting older, I'm getting much more open about all that.

Shakespeare's so bloody difficult, and I don't like failure. You can fail on film, but there's nobody actually there in the flesh to watch you failing.

My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man. He was a baker.

The whole point of courage, to overcome your fear. That's the interesting thing, when courage bleeds through the fear.

I love life because what more is there.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

We adore chaos because we love to produce order.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.