Alan Rickman Quotes

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.

Give me a window and I'll stare out it.

I have a love-hate relationship with white silk.

Do you know that moment when you paint a landscape as a child and, when you're maybe under seven or something, the sky is just a blue stripe across the top of the paper? And then there's that somewhat disappointing moment when the teacher tells you that the sky actually comes down in amongst all the branches. And it's like life changes at that moment and becomes much more complicated and a little bit more boring, as it's rather tedious to fill in the branches.

If you could build a house on a trampoline, that would suit me fine.

I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'.

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.

I've never been able to plan my life. I just lurch from indecision to indecision.

We're dead as a species if we don't tell stories, because then we don't know who we are.

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.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word [...] - a jouuuuuurney.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility.

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.

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.

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.

I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don't like what's being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.

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.

The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.

Mellow doesn't describe me. I'm hungry every day.

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.

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.

Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.

With the best intentions, the job of acting can become a display of accumulated bad habits, trapped instincts and blocked energies. Working with the Alexander Technique has given me sightings of another way... Mind and body, work and life together. Real imaginative freedom.

There's a voice inside you that tells you what you should do.

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.

I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.

I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.

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.

I can only see my limitations. That's just who I am.

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.

I don't play villains, I play very interesting people

All I want to see from an actor is the intensity and accuracy of their listening.

I think there's some connection between absolute discipline and absolute freedom.

I want to swim in both directions at once. Desire success, court failure.

Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.

One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.

When I get off the plane in England I always feel about two inches shorter.

You can lull the paying customers as long as they get slapped.

One thing I will say - my job gets harder and harder. The more you understand about what you are capable of, the less the instrument can do it physically. It's an inverse equation, if that's the right phrase. I just slammed those two words together. It sounded right.

What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.

I like it when stories are left open.

Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.

That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

Acting touches nerves you have absolutely no control over.

The point about a great story is that it's got a beginning, a middle and end.

I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.

When I am asked about influences, I always say I bow down to Fred Astaire, because when you look at him dancing you never look at his extremities, do you? You look at his centre. What you never see is the hours of work that went into the routines, you just see the breathtaking spirit and freedom.