Quotes from Tom Hiddleston

People love escapism and there should be a place for it.

I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'

I have been allowed to inhabit different shades of human nature and different colours of truth indifferent circumstances.

Truth in drama is elusive. You never quite find it, but the search for it is compulsive.

I was informed yesterday that there's a Twitter account for my laugh. Very hard to get used to things like that. Pretty amazing.

Heath Ledger's performance in 'The Dark Knight' quite simply changed the game. He raised the bar not just for actors in superhero films, but young actors everywhere; for me. His performance was dark, anarchic, dizzying, free, and totally, thrillingly, dangerous.

I think everyone should pursue their dreams. Whether you want to play football, act, sing, become a writer or whatever you have burning inside you as you're growing up, you should pursue it.

The dream is to keep surprising yourself, never mind the audience.

Make love, not war. Unless you're Loki, in which case: do what you want.

It was quite a European war until 1917, when the Americans joined up. They don't have the same sense of the loss of innocence and the cataclysmic loss of life. A whole generation was wiped out.

I believe in the strength and intelligence and sensitivity of women. My mother, my sisters [they] are strong. My mum is a strong woman and I love her for it.

In our increasingly secular society, with so many disparate gods and different faiths, superhero films present a unique canvas upon which our shared hopes, dreams and apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out.

I'm not a big fan of the class system, to be honest. It feels ugly to me. If you've got something to say and the work is good, it doesn't matter where you come from

I was so lucky because what I did in 'Thor' was I built the character from the ground up - the foundations of his spirit, really. He was someone who was born with an expectation that he would one day be a king, born with an entitlement.

In 'Thor,' that was my own hair. I grew it out. But I have naturally curly, blonde hair, so I'll never look like that. By the time I got to 'The Avengers,' I had come off two other films, which required me to have it very short. So I dyed it again and it was long enough to use a part of my hairline.

It sounds cliched, but superheroes can be lonely, vain, arrogant and proud. Often they overcome these human frailties for the greater good.

Do the work, enjoy the work, take it seriously, don't take yourself seriously and keep your head down!

I think everyone should do what they love because it will never feel like work that way.

I think we all see ourselves as the heroes in our own lives.

Showing young children in these communities, that there are outlets for their feelings, that there is room in a space for their stories to be told, and that they will be applauded - and it's not about ego, it's about connection: that their pain is everybody else's pain.

You never know what's around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you've climbed a mountain.

This generation has lost the true meaning of romance. There are so many songs that disrespect women. You can't treat the woman you love as a piece of meat. You should treat your love like a princess. Give her love songs, something with real meaning. Maybe I'm old fashioned but to respect the woman you love should be a priority.

Haters never win. I just think that's true about life, because negative energy always costs in the end.

Joanna points her camera at a section of society unused to having cameras pointed at it. But I don't know about categorizing them in terms of class I'm a bit wary of that. My dad is the son of a shipbuilder.