Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

Things are not quite what they seem always. Don’t start me on class, otherwise you’ll get a four-hour lecture.

The absent are never without fault. Nor the present without excuse.

Comedy is underrepresented in every actor’s life, because it’s so bloody difficult to write.

There’s quite a lot of bad stuff written about me. My wife even says a lot of bad stuff about me. But she is wonderful.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

I felt a tremendous sadness for men who can’t deal with a woman of their own age.

Save your money. You’re going to need twice as much money in your old age as you think.

I’m the audience’s representative on earth.

The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

English is clipped in speech. Texas is exactly the opposite.

I see myself as 38, but you don’t notice it.

A lot of my best parts I’ve been the second choice for, so you never get too egotistical about anything.

I read books like mad, but I am careful to to let anything I read influence me.

I prefer to remake flops. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of a flop, and The Quiet American is a remake of a flop.

Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.

I’m every bourgeois nightmare – a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

Oh, what a shock. My career must be slipping. This is the first time I’ve been available to pick up an award.

My own mentality is that I’ve retired. They send me these scripts and if I absolutely have to do it, then I go to work.

Alfie was the first time I was above the title; the first time I became a star in America.

I’ll always be there because I’m a skilled professional actor. Whether or not I’ve any talent is beside the point.

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called ‘wisdom’… I can’t fathom my own heart.

The standing ovation threw me… to be held in such regard in a town so full of talent is quite something.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I’m pig-headed.

I started with the firm conviction that when I came to the end, I wanted to be regretting the things that I had done, not the things I hadn’t.

Anyone can write. But comedy, you’ve got to do some writing. You get one comedy script to every 20 dramas.

If you think you’re going to be up for an Oscar, you schedule your moviemaking.

When I’m doing an accent, you shouldn’t notice it for a while, if I’m doing it right.

I wouldn’t make an anti-American film. I’m one of the most pro-American foreigners I know. I love America and Americans.

If you’re a movie actor, you’re on your own – you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.

The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That’s what I want to do.

I’m a sort of boy next door. If that boy has a good scriptwriter.

When you reach the top, that’s when the climb begins.

Obsession is a young man’s game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.

January is the garbage can of movies in America, directly after all the Oscar contenders have been out.

At 69, I got the girl! And it wasn’t a 68-year-old girl, either.