Guess quote

Alan Rickman [1946-2016] British

Rank: 101
Actor

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman was an English actor and director known for playing a variety of roles on stage and screen. Rickman trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in modern and classical theatre productions.

Art, Change, Experience, Failure, Freedom, Future, God, Good, History, Home, Hope, Morning, Music, Relationship, Sympathy, Trust, Work

Quote	Tags	Rank
I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.	Good	101
I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.	Freedom	102
It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.	Future	103
From my experience, I think that every actor has to make sure that they're in charge of their own career somehow or other.	Experience	104
The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. Or, what's impossible? What's a fantasy?		105
The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'	Trust	106
I was 7, and I remember being given a part in a play and thinking, This is exciting.		107
If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.	Work	108
If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.		109
My idea of a real treat is Magic Mountain without standing in line.		110
What is it about actors? God knows I get bored with actors talking about themselves.	God	111
I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.		112
Three children have become adults since a phone call with Jo Rowling, containing one small clue, persuaded me that there was more to Snape than an unchanging costume, and that even though only three of the books were out at that time, she held the entire massive but delicate narrative in the surest of hands.		113
I approach every part I'm asked to do and decide to do from exactly the same angle: who is this person, what does he want, how does he attempt to get it, and what happens to him when he doesn't get it, or if he does?		114
Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.	Change, Music	115
I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.		116
Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.		117
I like it when stories are left open.		118
I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.		119
If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.	Art	120
Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.		121
There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.		122
I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.		123
I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.	Home	124
I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.		125
On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.		126
It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.		201
The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.		202
You try to find things that are challenging and interesting and hopefully it will be the same to the audience.		203
I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.		204
Unless we tell stories about ourselves, which is all that theater is, we're in deep trouble.		205
Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.		206
I am the character you are not supposed to like.		207
And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.		208
It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.		209
I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.	Relationship	210
I'm a lot less serious than people think.		211
I don't think it's right that everybody knows everything about me.		212
Somebody with Debbie Reynolds' features doesn't get cast as the Wicked Witch.		213
Who I am gets in the way of people looking innocently at the parts I play.		214
I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller-coaster parks.		215
So you can't judge the character you're playing ever.		216
I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.		217
Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you - almost seems to speak through you, in fact.		218
I always feel that when I come to Edinburgh, in many ways I am coming home.		219
England in the '60s and the '70s was everything that history has said; it was phenomenally exciting, musically.	History	220
I think the thing about film is, as it gets proved by a lot of young filmmakers now, that the medium will just go on reinventing itself, and so you just hope to be a part of that and not a part of some kind of endless regurgitation or 'Here I am doing what you know I do' kind of thing.	Hope	221
I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.		222
I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we're assailed by the most delicious scent - jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.	Morning	223
I was a student in London in the '70s, so CBGB really wasn't on my radar at all. Obviously, I was aware of the emergence of the Police in England and as an art student, I was very aware of David Byrne, but I suppose my musical taste at that time certainly didn't stretch towards the Dead Boys or the Ramones.		224
Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.		225
I think every English actor is nervous of a Newcastle accent.		226
Film has to be reflecting the world that we live in, and that's all you want to be a part of. Actors inhabit the same planet as everyone else. It's a weird thing that happens when you're an actor because people hold you up because you somehow embody in parts groups of people or people's hopes or something.		301
Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.		302
All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.		303
I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.	Failure	304
I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.		305
Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.		306
The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda.		307
My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.		308
I can only see my limitations. That's just who I am.		309
I'm very aware that when one is acting in the theater, you do become kind of animal about it. And you're reliant on instincts rather than tact a lot of the time.		310
A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.		311
I have a photograph at home of Fred Astaire from the knees down with his feet crossed. It's kind of inspiring because it reminds me his feet were bleeding at the end of rehearsals. Yet when you watch him, all you see is freedom. It's a reminder of what the job is about in general, not just being in musicals.		312
Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And there's a whole bunch of teenagers who only want to talk about 'Dogma.'		313
On film you put all your energies into a single glance.		314
What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.		315
When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.		316
You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.		317
In theater, you've got to be aware of your whole body because it involves stamina. It involves two-and-a-half hours and a sustained release of energy, maybe for six months.		318
I have every sympathy for writers. It's a mystery to me what they do. I can edit. I can cross out and say, 'I'm not saying that' or, 'How about we move this to here? Wouldn't that make that bit of the story better?' But where any of it comes from is beyond me. I will never write a play or a novel.	Sympathy	319
Los Angeles is not a town full of airheads. There's a great deal of wonderful energy there. They say 'yes' to things; not like the endless 'nos' and 'hrrumphs' you get in England!		320
Actors are actually very supportive of each other.		321
Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.		322
If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.		323
I think worrying things are going on in England - a real apathy.		324
I'm always aware of the camera and it feels like that's the audience.		325
Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made.		326
One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.		401
The audience should feel like voyeurs. Their response is absolutely crucial.		402
I love working in New York theater.		403
You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.		404
Parts win prizes, not actors.		405
Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.		406
Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing - if I was lucky. Then along came movies.		407

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