The applause of all but very good men is no more than the precise measure of their possible hostility.

A person who is keen to shake your hand usually has something up his sleeve.

An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents.

My contribution to film has always been negligible.

I don't know what else I could do but pretend to be an actor.

Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.

We live in an age of apologies. Apologies, fake or true, are expected from the descendants of empire builders, slave owners and persecutors of heretics, and from men who -in our eyes- just got it all wrong. So, with the age of 85 coming up shortly, I want to make an apology. It appears I must apologize for being male, white, and European.