I'm the audience's representative on earth.

Some men just want to watch the world burn

You cannot have one bathroom. And it don't matter how much you love your wife and everything, 'cause you wind up with no room at all. You just get a little corner and you've got a toothbrush and your paste and a shaving brush and a razor. And you can never get in there. So you must have two bathrooms. You really must. I think it's essential.

To me, 'Educating Rita' is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.

Books were my window on the world. Growing up at the Elephant and Castle, which was very rough, my paradise was the library.

Great acting is about listening to what they are saying ....not waiting to deliver your lines.

What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write, and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing.