For me, life has either been a wake or a wedding.

Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs... and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone.

I will not be an ordinary man, because I have a right to be extraordinary.

The good parts are the people who don't make do. They're the interesting people. Lear doesn't make do.

My professional acting life, stage and screen, has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.

I became a professional cricket teacher about 20 years ago. I had a son born to me when I was 50, and I thought, he needs someone to bowl to him.

It grieves us to produce work that is not perfect.