Love is a command to rise to one's highest potential, the best and noblest vision of ourselves. Love is a reward, the greatest we can earn, granted to us for the moral qualities we have achieved in our lives.

Americans are very good at animating voices. I don't know why. They have a freedom with them that we British actors find more difficult to get to.

Painters hate having to explain what their work is about. They always say, 'It's whatever you want it to be' - because I think that's their intention, to connect with each person's subconscious, and not to try and dictate.

I woke up one day and realized I could never be an American.

[Washington is a] very gossipy little village of people all going to the same bars . . . all watching each other having affairs with each other

The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.

We're all idiots when we're young. We don't think we are, but we are. So we should be.