"Any kind of recognition for the work that you've done is a terrific thing. As a film actor, you don't often get that opportunity to meet with your audience and take your applause on stage. It's quite nice to meet people and hear them say, "I really enjoyed your work in this." I really enjoyed the Leprechaun films, and people who enjoy Leprechaun are quite obsessed."

"I'm always flattered when the Leprechauns are listed in these "Top Tens" of horror characters among Freddy Kruger and Jason, which were the characters I grew up "admiring," if that's the right word."

"I feel so sorry for those poor men sitting up there all day. They must be so cold."

"John Gielgud didn't play Hamlet, he was Hamlet."

"[As Caliban in a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest Ralph Richardson was having difficulties in rehearsal] I couldn't find my feet very well and after a rehearsal, John said to me one day "Would you care to run over your scene with me?" so I thought to myself "Not much". So rather grudgingly I said "Oh yes, all right". So we ran through it, just the two of us in the theatre with the director and Johnny said "Well you know Ralph, I think that when you come on, you might do this or you might do that, you might do this" - he gave me, as he usually does, about three or four suggestions. I thought to myself My god, so I might, I might do one of those. And he talked about Sycorax my mother...he gave me about two hundred ideas as he usually does, twenty-five of which I eagerly seized on, and when I went away I thought "This chap, you know, I don't like him very much but by God he knows something about this here play." He helped me so much that I looked at him afterwards in quite a different way. And then out of that we formed a friendship.""

"I'm sure there isn't an after-life. If there were, Ivor Novello would have got a message to us."

"The Reality? Is it then so certain that Life is made of four Absurdities? Is it not far more certain that life is made up of Four Beauties of Calmness, Joy, Harmony, Rhythm... The truest reality. And what of the expression of all this — Art? Must Pandemonium and Ugliness ever stand for Strength?"

"I believe in the time when we shall be able to create works of art in the Theatre without the use of the written play, without the use of actors."

"[The] kind of thinking [...] which refuses to make distinctions among artists on the basis of color or nationality or gender, which insists on inclusion rather than exclusion, is hardly fashionable with the current tribalism known as multiculturalism and cultural diversity. But it represents [...] the only kind of thinking that can prepare the way for great art, and builds the path to a reconciled society."

"I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, With vassals and serfs at my side."

"But I also dreamt, which pleased me most, That you lov'd me still the same."

"The heart bowed down by weight of woe To weakest hope will cling."

"The light of other days is faded, And all their glories past."

"So Shakespeare's page, the flower of poesy, Ere Garrick rose had charms for every eye; 'Twas Nature's genuine image wild and grand, The strong-marked picture of a master's hand. But when his Garrick, Nature's Pallas, came, The bard's bold painting burst into a flame: Each part new force and vital warmth received, As touched by Heaven—and all the picture lived."

"Prologues like compliments are loss of time; ’T is penning bows and making legs in rhyme."

"Their cause I plead,—plead it in heart and mind; A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."

"Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."

"Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who wrote like an angel, and talk’d like poor Poll."

"Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us? Is this the great poet whose works so content us? This Goldsmith’s fine feast, who has written fine books? Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks?"

"Here lies James Quinn. Deign, reader, to be taught, Whate’er thy strength of body, force of thought, In Nature’s happiest mould however cast, To this complexion thou must come at last."

"Heart of oak are our ships, Heart of oak are our men; We always are ready."

"This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet."

"Let others hail the rising sun: I bow to that whose course is run."

"His profession made him rich and he made his profession respectable."

"I am disappointed by that stroke of death that has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."

"Queen Victoria - I thought gags were things that were put by authority into people's mouths. D'Oyly Carte - These gags, your Majesty, are things that people put into their own mouths without authority"