On playing a character: "You can't relate to a superhero, to a superman, but you can identify with a real man who in times of crisis draws forth some extraordinary quality from within himself and triumphs but only after a struggle. Real courage is knowing what faces you and knowing how to face it." (source: "The Making of LICENCE TO KILL" by Sally Hibbin. Eon Productions Ltd. and Glidrose Publications Ltd., 1979.) "I don't think I've drunk one since I've left the Bond movies. Every bar you go in, there's always some wisecrack, 'Oh, yours will be a Martini, shaken, not stirred!' You get sick and tired of that." - talking about all of the vodka martinis he would get whenever he walked into a bar, while he was playing Bond. "I felt as free as a bird" - describing driving down Sunset Boulevard and seeing a billboard that had Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan on it, but no Timothy Dalton. "It's very important to make the man believable so that you can stretch the fantasy. Whether people like this kind of Bond is another question." (on his approach to the role of James Bond) "When I saw those posters of Pierce standing there, I suddenly thought to myself, Jesus, I don't have to stand there with a gun to the side of my head anymore! I suddenly found the most tremendous sense of liberation, and I started to feel more like myself than I'd felt in years! I suddenly felt free!" (describing his feelings on whether or not in retrospect he made the right decision not to make the James Bond film GoldenEye) "I don't think that Bond is a role model or that he should be a role model. He's only part of a particular kind of story. I don't think anyone should grow up wanting to go around killing people. I don't think anyone should grow up wanting to be a secret agent."