169 Quotes by Alan Rickman

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.

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.

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

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

Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility.

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 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.

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