"What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, And all that draweth on the tomb for text. Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. We are the lords of life, and life is warm. Intelligence and instinct now are one. But nature says: 'My children most they seem When they least know me: therefore I decree That they shall suffer.' Swift doth young Love flee, And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream. Then if we study Nature we are wise."

"The actors are, it seems, the usual three: Husband and wife and lover."

"And if I drink oblivion of a day, So shorten I the stature of my soul."

"Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we pay for it full worth: We have it only when we are half earth."

"Speech is the small change of Silence."

"God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman!"

"Kissing don't last; cookery do!"

"The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts."

"Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious."

"Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered."

"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man."

"Cannon his name, Cannon his voice, he came."

"All wisdom's armoury this man could wield"

"Behold the life at ease; it drifts, The sharpened life commands its course."

"Full lasting is the song, though he, The singer, passes"

"With patient inattention hear him prate."

"Civil limitation daunts His utterance never; the nymphs blush, not he."

"Criticism should be done by critics, and a critic should have some training and some love of the medium he is discussing. But these days, gossip-columnist training seems to be enough qualification. I suppose an ability to stand on your feet through interminable cocktail parties and swig interminable gins in between devouring masses of fried prawns may just possibly help you to understand and appreciate what a director is getting at, but for the life of me I can't see how."

"There is no me. I do not exist … There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed."

"Peter Sellers, a showbiz baby, was carried onstage two weeks into his life by vaudevillian Dickie Henderson, who encouraged the audience to join him in singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Little Peter instantly burst into tears and the audience erupted into laughter and applause. From Pete's perspective, this emotional scenario was played out more or less consistently until his death in 1980."

"Peter was always a mixed-up guy, a childish fellow. But if you're fond of children, you're also fond of childish men. He was always very helpful to me. After he was famous, and when I was still in trouble with the US embassy, he wrote a letter in support of me which was magnificent. But it is true that he was very cruel to his children. He was so hurt by the way children treat you when you're their father. I have been hurt by my children. But he was not in possession of a proper brain when it came to these things."

"He had a conspicuous individual talent, but it was interpretive, not directly creative. He could never have emulated Chaplin, Keaton or Jacques Tati and set up a whole project by himself, controlling its every detail even if the task took years. But there is no point carping. He had such a protean capacity that it would have been a miracle if he had been in full command of it."

"[W]hile at first I felt like a new boy in his presence, I soon relaxed: he was so welcoming, cheery and easy to write with. And he was effortlessly, brilliantly funny all the [fucking] time. We’d be sitting there discussing some aspect of the plot and he’d slide into a five-minute monologue that he could easily have bestowed on a West End audience."

"I writhe when I see myself on the screen. I'm such a dreadfully clumsy hulking image. I say to myself, "Why doesn't he get off? Why doesn't he get off?" I mean, I look like such an idiot. Some fat awkward thing dredged up from some third-rate drama company. I must stop thinking about it, otherwise I shan't be able to go on working."

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"

"Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat."

"I'm a classic example of all humorists — only funny when I'm working."

"If I can't really find a way to live with myself, I can't expect anyone else to live with me."

"To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience."

"People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it."

"If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am."