I'm rather bored by the subject - meaning me. It's a sort of a yoke, but at times you know, a yoke is a kind of comfort. And it's always there.

Scratch an actor and you'll find an actor.

My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.

[May 1958, on playing Macbeth at age 30 and age 48] When you're a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you're older, it's a straight part.

If you're an artist, you've got to prove it.

Work is life for me, it is the only point of life - and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.

[on whether he harbored any resentment at his forced retirement from the stage after he was fired by Britain's National Theater] I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare... An actor must act.