The mainstream is generally garbage. Look at the heavily subsidized theaters.
We often find far more power in a symbol than in something that is an an actuality.
A great opera house isn't run by a director, but by a great administrator.
When I wrote 'East,' I wanted a completely earthy, very sexy, very violent play, so I wrote in verse. I found it not only satisfying but releasing. It gave me an opportunity to play with language. We never played the characters like the yobs that they are, but rather in a slightly heightened way.
Technology is the devil, and the more technology you have, the higher the price you pay.
I'd like to be remembered with affection, with regard, and with just a smallest amount of admiration - that here's a man who walked against the tide.
British culture loves the image of itself in the mirror; it doesn't want to look deep inside, behind the eyes, inside the brain, inside where those shivers and nightmares lie.
When I started studying acting, I was enamoured of actors who used movement to enhance the language.
When I write about working-class people, I do so in ways that reveal them at their absolute, magnificent worst.
I find it very satisfying to write because you can purge many things and vent what you feel under the mask of fiction.
When I ascended from the depths of the working class to the middle class, the higher I got, the more dishonesty I found.
The most vital part of your humanity is the love you have for others. To deny it is to deny your life.
After watching my poor mother being sometimes neglected by my father, it was almost tattooed on my brain that I would never cause hardship or despair to a partner.
I may be 80, but I intend to keep acting until the day I die. Instead of slowing down, I've discovered my second wind.
Art is a way of penetrating and going deep into our unconscious and creating amazing worlds - as the Greeks did, if you like, as did Ovid with his stories and his fantasies.
Anti-Semitism has never gone away; it will always be there because it's a very convenient prejudice. The gene of it, the original DNA, is buried deep within our history. And even within some Jews as well.
Writing is an antidote for loneliness.
I've played a lot of bad guys in my time, especially in movies. It's delightful playing the villain. It's almost the most interesting and most complicated role in a film.
The theatre is your pulpit - it is your church - and you want to be a priest in your church, and that's what I believe in.
If you want to be an actor, you must have total, ruthless commitment to your art. Don't be ambitious for fame or TV or movies. Art is a jealous mistress and will brook no competitors. Study all the time. Never stop reading. Never stop learning speeches. It will fill you up - define and refine you.
