Anthony Hopkins Quotes

My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.

We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap.

Try not to be concerned with it. It's a spiritual thing. Don't look for the results, don't live in the payoff. Live in the moment which is a spiritual principle. Live in the moment and let the results take care of themselves. It's in the hands of God. The rest is all ego. And I have learned, over the years, it's got nothing to do with me. As my life is none of my business.

Life's too short to deal with other people's insecurities.

No expectations. Ask nothing, expect nothing and accept everything, and life is very well.

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

The way to make better decisions is to make more of them. Then make sure you learn from each one, including those that don't seem to work out in the short term: they will provide valuable distinctions to make better evaluations and therefore decisions in the future. Realize that decision making, like any skill you focus on improving, gets better the more often you do it.

I don't believe in nepotism. I don't much like the idea of parents who interfere.

Once you accept the fact that there's nothing to fear, you drill into the primal oil well. I believe when we do things without fear, we can do anything. As long as you don't worry about the consequences.

Relish everything that's inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.

The whole point of courage, to overcome your fear. That's the interesting thing, when courage bleeds through the fear.

I always liked to take the plunge, you know, I'd jump in at the deep end and hope that I'd find land somehow, or hope I'd float or survive. That's more or less the way I've gone through my life.

You're not more than one generation from poor white trash, are you, Agent Starling?

I love life because what more is there?

I have a punishing workout regimen. Every day I do 3 minutes on a treadmill, then I lie down, drink a glass of vodka and smoke a cigarette.

Israel means war and destruction and we Americans are behind this war and I am ashamed of being American.

I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.

My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.

Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived... The pain now is part of the happiness then.

The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.

If you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict, we flirt with death. We pull ourselves to the brink of destruction and if we’re lucky we pull ourselves back. We all have that in us.

I believe I am quite amiable and affable and quite fair, and I've rarely worked with people who are the opposite. Moodiness scares me. What gets to me is unkindness. Madness. Unwarranted cruelty through words. People who scream and shout at work. I hate confrontation and violence. I've done it in the past and I don't want to do it again. I guess I want a perfect world.

I don't like mushiness. I'm a very emotional person but I hate sentimentality. I don't like great demonstrations of emotion. But as I'm getting older, I'm getting much more open about all that.

People don't always tell you what they are thinking. They just see to it that you don't advance in life.

I am a bit of a solitude person - a solitary personality. I like being on my own. I don't have any major friendships or relationships with people.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

Guilt is the thief of life.

Sometimes I feel tired and think I ought to give it up, I don't want to just retire. No, I enjoy it all and you just keep going until the day comes when you can't do it anymore. And that's what I want to do.

I'm very much a loner. I don't like long relationships with people and I always keep people at a distance.

I read a lot, that's my main hobby. I've got an iPad which I store books on and I read voraciously. I'm a slow reader but I'm obsessive. I make references, underline things, cross-reference. I'm an autodidact.

I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it. I think we ask too many questions of ourselves. We make too much importance of stuff. But I do say to actors when I have taught in classes, or when I sometimes do a talk to a group. I'll say, “If I never acted again, the world wouldn't stop, nor would it stop if I didn't stop acting. That's how important it is. I know it [seems] important when you're young. But I say, “Lighten up. Don't take it all so seriously.” All the gurus and teachers will take your money and run.

The reward is in the doing of it.

We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist.

By giving up 'the need' and 'the want', things begin to happen for you

I don't have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don't know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don't know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don't think you need all that stuff.

We are fascinated by the darkness in ourselves, we are fascinated by the shadow, we are fascinated by the bogeyman.

That's what happens if you don't address the darkness in you. You become repressed and depressed and suicidal.

If you don't go when you want to go, when you do go, you'll find you've gone.

When you begin to believe you have license because you are a special person breathing special oxygen, that's when you're in big trouble. That's the road to insanity. And a lot of people in the studios are like that. They believe that they are special. I do think actors are blessed, or cursed, with maybe a slightly heightened awareness, which you have to use.

If you do things, whether it's acting or music or painting, do it without fear - that's my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there's nothing to lose.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.

If you don't follow through on your dreams, you might as well be a vegetable.

The movie industry is full of crazy people who think that they are god.

I was called 'Dumbo,' like the elephant, as a child because I couldn't understand things at school.

I know how to be strong. I know how to be ruthless. It's part of my nature. I wouldn't be an actor if I wasn't.

I love to read, and so I've been reading everything I can, not intensely, but I love to read so I read "Origin of Species" by Darwin and I can't make head or tail of E=MC squared by Einstein, but I try to baffle my way through that.

And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.

I like the good life too much, I'm not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.

I’m not young anymore. I don’t wanna start over again.

Beware the tyranny of the weak. They just suck you dry.