"I was called Sean long before I was an actor, I had an Irish buddy when I was twelve named Seamus -- 'pronounced Sha-mus'. So they nicknamed us Seamus and Shawn and it stuck." "I never disliked Bond, as some have thought. Creating a character like that does take a certain craft. It's simply natural to seek other roles." "More than anything else, I'd like to be an old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or Picasso." "I've honestly not been too aware of my age until I went to the doctor for a full check-up. He said I had the heart of a young man - 'but you're not young, you're 40.'" "Some age, others mature." "I had never read Tolkien, and I didn't understand the script when they sent it to me. Bobbits? Hobbits?" on turning down the role of Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings". "I'm an actor - it's not brain surgery. If I do my job right, people won't ask for their money back." "I have always hated that damn James Bond. I'd like to kill him." "I've never kept a record of anything. I gave away everything: all the posters, the memorabilia that would have been helpful - and financially rewarding." "It's with me till I go in the box." [on whether he would ever escape being identified as 007] "One of the things that strikes me is that no matter how difficult or underprivileged the situation you were living in as a child, it wasn't considered difficult. I don't think as children, you are aware of it. You have nothing to compare it to." "I care about Bond and what happens to him. You cannot be connected with a character for this long and not have an interest. All the Bond films had their good points." "I don't know who could be in favor of it, but it can't be stopped. It is inevitable." [Speaking about the impending invasion of Iraq in March 2003] "I'm fed up with the idiots, the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and those who green light them. I don't say they're all idiots - I'm just saying there's a lot of them. It would almost need a Mafia-like offer I couldn't refuse to do another movie." "I said I never would [do an autobiography] and then I thought about it and I said, 'I'm going to do it'. Then I started. Yeah, and it cost me a stonking amount of money not to do it - because I'd already put the wheels in motion. He [Davies] started to run with the ball with all this stuff. I realized I was going to be spending the best part of my life, and probably the rest of my life, trying to correct these inaccuracies and I can't be bothered." "Craig's a great choice, really interesting - different. He's a good actor. It's a completely new departure." (On Daniel Craig) "I thought Pierce Brosnan was a good choice. I liked GoldenEye. Timothy Dalton never got a handle on the role. He took it seriously in the wrong way. The person who plays Bond has to be dangerous. If there isn't a sense of threat, you can't be cool." "I think the fact that one's hair disappeared early made it easier. I never had a 'transition problem'. I've always played older. I played Harrison Ford's father and Dustin Hoffman's father. And this year, I'm going to be sixty-five. I'm hardly going to get into a weight program and do "Tarzan". I could have the best body sculpting in the world, but I'm never going to be James Bond again". "What happened was that I had polyps on my vocal cords for about six years. I had them lasered off each time. But then I had a little twinge of a problem while I was doing Rising Sun. I couldn't get the timbre of my voice right. I couldn't get the variation and enunciation as comfortable as I wanted. So I went back to the doctor and he suggested radiation. I went for six weeks and didn't have any side effects or problems. Then I made the announcement that I had done radiation treatment. The publicists said not to do it, that it would set off an explosion. But I thought, if you do radiation and it's a success, why not speak about it?" "It was a nightmare. The director should never have been given $185 million." [On The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen] "I have retired for good. It's been a bit rough since Christmas but I'm perfectly OK and I feel well. In fact, I'm working on a history book." (March 2006) "One of the reasons I stopped doing it was because I got really fed up with the space stuff and special effects. I just found it getting more and more influential in the movies." - On why he resigned the role of James Bond while filming You Only Live Twice "Though my feet are tired, my heart is not." (During his speech after receiving the AFI Life Achievement award) "I had no grand plan. Everyone talks about how they knew the Bond films were going to be a success, but it simply isn't true." "Yeah, well, I never understood it. I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. I still don't understand it." - On turning down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring "It is said that a total ban on handguns, including .22s, would take away innocent pleasure from thousands of people. Is that more or less pleasure than watching your child grow up?" On being one of the biggest movie stars in the world: "Well, that's only because of your price. And my current price? Well, ha, that's nobody's business but mine." "I am resting from acting - you might say I'm retired. It would take something really considerable to bring me back. Nothing has been discussed but I hear it's back on." - On _Indiana Jones 4 (2008)_ "There's one major difference between James Bond and me. He is able to sort out problems!" "I never trashed a hotel room or did drugs. I don't understand if you get caught in a fight, but to take it out on a room that implies some psychiatric disorder. The way I was brought up made me think about the person who has to clean up afterwards." "I did smoke pot a few times but nothing else. I would never inject. I'm too fond of the drink. At times I can go two weeks or more without it, but then I'm quite enthusiastic to get back to the taste again." "Dealing with this financial stuff was too much for me. It was back to education and I had to learn to understand it all myself." "Peter Mandelson, two times thrown out, is now representing Britain in Europe. In the olden times, they would have hung him up by his feet. The decisions in the UK are made by President Tony Blair and a couple of his cooks in the kitchen." "I am happy to say that I sued Allied Artists for cosmetic book-keeping and they're bankrupt." "It reads as though one had made great dramatic decisions, but in fact one didn't. I certainly had the drive from the beginning, but the targets and ambitions were much, much less." "One of the things that strikes me is that no matter how difficult or underprivileged the situation you were living in as a child, it wasn't considered difficult. I don't think as children, you are aware of it. You have nothing to compare it to." "The time came for me to retire because of my rather unfortunate last movie ... The cost to me in terms of frustration and avoiding going to jail for murder cannot have continued." Whenever I've tangled with a beautiful spy, have you noticed what invariably happens? Even if I know the girl is a nasty and dangerous little snake, I've still had to kiss her first and kill her later. "The Scottish media all say, 'Oh yeah, he's a tax exile.' I have paid more tax than the Government put together in that Parliament. I still pay full tax when I work in England and the same when I work in America." (2004) "It's purely political. I have never made any secret of my association, affiliation with the Scottish National Party. I don't like the turn it's taken now when they drag up something, which is something from the past about my violence towards women which I have attempted to answer in so many ways. It might have been a stupid comment of mine to say to smack a woman or slap a woman, I think I said, and it was picked up much later by an unmentionable in America who really worked a flanker and presented a show as though I had actually admitted that it was okay to punch women. In fact in the near future there will be some kind of revelation about quite a lot of that anyway, which I'm not going to go into now." - On his knighthood being blocked by the Labour government for the second time in 1998. "I get asked the question so often, I thought it best to make an announcement. I thought long and hard about it and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven and George, and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun. I, do however, have one bit of advice for Junior: Demand that the critters be digital, the cliffs be low, and for goodness sake keep that whip by your side at all times in case you need to escape from the stunt coordinator! This is a remarkable cast, and I can only say, 'Break a leg, everyone.' I'll see you on May 22, 2008, at the theater!"