I once wanted to prove myself by being a great actress. Now I want to prove that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll be a great actress.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

Spiritual people don’t float around all day on clouds of glory; they live in the real world and deal with real issues in real ways.

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

I just want to be myself.

I’m crazy and I don’t pretend to be anything else.

The beginning of compunction is the beginning of a new life.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

Good intentions never change anything. They only become a deeper and deeper rut.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

Hair is about when you’re younger. I am my hair.

Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.

Acting is nothing more or less than playing. The idea is to humanize life.

I always thought it was wrong for me to take credit for the work that I did. I don’t think that anymore.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

It’s very hard to find your own words – and you don’t actually exist until you have your own words.

Stand-up can take you in so many different places, man. So many doors can be opened up from stand-up comedy, and the first one that was opened up for me was acting.

I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven’t lived in vain.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

Self-actualized people are independent of the good opinion of others.

Overall there’s going to be things I’m not great at.

I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. As long as I stay there in that space, I can do anything. That’s my truth.

I love my friends and my past, and it’s made me who I am.

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.

My role 14 years ago in Richard III – that was the first time I played a bad guy and learned a lot about it – they have all the fun!

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.

I love the natural world – it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

A career is born in public – talent in privacy.

I’m not a photographer, so I didn’t get into F-stops or ND filters or background, foreground, cross-light, all that stuff. But I was interested in the camera and the lenses. That’s the world that I’m moving in, in terms of acting and giving a performance.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

I think I’ve developed, as many people do, this sense of, ‚Don’t say the wrong thing, or else people will point at you and laugh.‘

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.

Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.

I’m not going to stop having problems.

I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.

My son’s full real name is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As a toddler, he was called by his second name Zowie. But it was such an identifiable name during the Seventies that if I called him loudly in public places, everyone would turn to stare, so I started calling him Joey to take the pressure off.

We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

There’s two sorts of fear: one you embrace and one you should listen to and turn the other way.

I never fall in love.

Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‚One tear, right now,‘ that one tear would pop out.

At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.

Everyone calls me Bruno; they don’t ever call me Peter – that was just my government name.

I undertake the same project as Montaigne, but with an aim contrary to his own: for he wrote his Essays only for others, and I write my reveries only for myself.

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company.

The person we believe ourselves to be will always act in a manner consistent with our self-image.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

For a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn’t be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It’s a surprise to me that this hasn’t happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.

Sometimes you must suffer through something to defeat your fear of it.

Men must know their limitations.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

When I was a young kid, I did not even dream about playing for my country. It was such a farfetched thing to play for India.