Christopher Lee Quotations

Ian Fleming was my cousin, you know. He was in naval intelligence.

I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers.

'The Impossible Dream' is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songs ever written. Here is a man, an old man, a very old man full of daring, bravery, courage, determination, romanticism and dreams.

What's really important for me is, as an old man, I'm known by my own generation and the next generation know me, too.

My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often.

I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved.

To be a legend, you've either got to be dead or excessively old!

I turn to the 'Telegraph's' obituaries page with trepidation.

One of the first things a British visitor to Southern California discovers is that he must have a car. Freeways. Bad public transport. I took driving lessons.

I've worked with Tim Burton five times, and it's just like being part of a family; life doesn't get much better than that.

The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people: to present them with something they didn't expect.

When I was very young - around the age of nine - my family used to go to a house in Somerset that my stepfather rented every summer. There was fishing, lakes and riding.

When the Second World War finished, I was 23, and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.

You can learn Elvish, if you want. It's a language like Italian and English. You can learn to read it, you can learn to write it, and you can learn to speak it.

Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.

I don't really like long flights any more - I find them too tiring. Flying always involves the same things these days - huge crowds at airports, waiting around, late take-offs, weather problems, and so on. I don't really enjoy travelling. I don't imagine anyone does except young children.

We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not.

The secret to a long marriage in the film industry? Marry someone wonderful, as I did. And always have her come along on location.

The saddest country I went to was Romania, years ago, during Ceausescu's rule.

Ian Fleming was my cousin, and he wanted me to play Dr. No, but by the time he got around to remembering to tell the producers, they'd already cast someone else. Spilt milk!

As far as I am concerned, Don Quixote is the most metal fictional character that I know. Single handed, he is trying to change the world, regardless of any personal consequences.

Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read into that what they like.

I haven't spent my entire career playing the guy in the bad hat, although I have to say that the bad guy is frequently much more interesting than the good guy.

'The Wicker Man' for me, as an actor, was definitely the best film I've ever done.

I still think 'The Lord of the Rings' is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime. Like so many other people, I couldn't wait for the second and then the third book. Nothing like it had ever been written.

Acting as a profession came to me by chance: in 1946, after the war, I was having lunch with my cousin, who was the Italian ambassador, and he asked, 'What are you going to do now you're out of uniform?' I said, 'I'm pretty inventive, and I can imitate people,' and he said, 'Have you thought about being an actor?'

I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am.

I did play Ramses II once, who lived to be 91 and had 120 children, but he died 4,000 years ago.

I knew Vincent Price from films - he was a big movie star - but the first time I met him was when we filmed 'The Oblong Box.'

When I first read “Lord of the Rings”, I wanted to see a film of it. But at that time, the technology wasn't there, there was no such thing as CGI.

The song "My Way" is a very remarkable song. It is also difficult to sing because you've got to convince people that what you're singing about is the truth. It's a man who is very proud of having achieved everything that he's achieved his way.

It's what you don't see that keeps you on the edge of your seat in any kind of film - leave it to the imagination of the viewer.

Comedy is the most difficult thing to do. Easily the most difficult.

Somebody once asked me how I found Peter Jackson, and I said: 'Well, I parted his hair, and there he was.'

If I had any deadly secrets, I wouldn't still be alive.

My great-grandmother was born in London, the daughter of a Brixton coachman, and became the most famous singer in Australia. Her name was Marie Carandini, Madame Carandini.

The most important film I made, in terms of its subject and the great responsibility I had as an actor, was a film I did about the founder of Pakistan called 'Jinnah.'

I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.

There are many vampires in the world today... you only have to think of the film business.

I don't play long parts. They must be short parts, but they've got to be parts that mean something, that matter, where people will notice when I'm on the screen, and people will remember the character after they've seen the film.

Making films has never just been a job to me, it is my life. I have some interests outside of acting - I sing and I've written books, for instance - but acting is what keeps me going, it's what I do, it gives life purpose.

A whole new career opened up for me when I was in 'Lord Of The Rings' and 'Star Wars.'

I lived for 10 years in Los Angeles, and the one element that surpasses everything else - that you are very conscious of - is fear. You can smell it.

I made three films with Boris Karloff. He was absolutely wonderful.

I thought that people should know about the dangers of Satanism, and diabolism does exist - there's no question about it.

The first 'Charlemagne' album is metal, of course, but what I sang was more symphonic.

I've always acknowledged my debt to Hammer. I've always said I'm very grateful to them. They gave me this great opportunity, made me a well known face all over the world for which I am profoundly grateful.

Films are now made by accountants. They pick a pretty young female or male face out of the air and give them a part - not because they think that person is right for it or is ready for it, but because they think that person will make them money.

There was a gap of seven years between the first and second Dracula movies. In the second one as everybody knows, I didn't speak, because I said I couldn't say the lines.

Before 'Lord of the Rings,' some people would have just classed Peter Jackson as a horror director. But there is a mind there.

I've done a lot of films that have become iconic, not necessarily because of me.

Peter Jackson's instincts are extraordinary, as is his stamina.

I have made a lot of movies, but I don't see any point in talking about films I don't think are terribly good. I have been in a few. I don't know any actor that hasn't.

I am never going to stop playing the villain. I would be foolish to do so because the audiences apparently enjoy watching me, and who am I to say no?

I didn't want to be known as a man who only made horror films. I made some - very few.

I don't think anyone has ever succeeded in putting Ian Fleming's James Bond up on the screen. The closest in my opinion is Pierce Brosnan.

I was attached to the SAS from time to time, but we are forbidden - former, present, or future - to discuss any specific operations.

There is something sad about malevolence, to be wicked. I have always tried to make that come across in the villains I have played.

We don't live in a particularly attractive world. I don't really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world.

I'm still asked a great deal about 'The Wicker Man' because it's become one of the great cult movies of all time. That's the story of my career, really, making cult movies. And I've always said it's the best film I've ever made.

In 1956, the success of the Hammer films kick-started my career. That immediately gave me a name and a face to go with it. I will always be grateful to Hammer for that.

My father's family can be traced back to 1400. I've been told by gypsies that there is unmistakeably gypsy blood in me. Lee is a gypsy name, you know.

There are certain things producers ask you to do, and when I was starting out, I said yes to everything. I was asked, for 'Quo Vadis,' to drive a chariot. I said, 'Oh yes. I'm licenced for all vehicles.' Two days later, I was sitting in this dustbin with two very aggressive horses. I didn't stay in it for long.

There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing.

On the Italian side, we can trace the family back 2,000 years. I have a cousin in Rome, a famous archaeologist, Count Andrea Carandini, who was in Lombardy and came across some pottery with the original name of the family, Carandinus, painted on it.

I wouldn't say that Mac OS X is a make or break product for Apple, but it's close. But it can move Apple into spaces where it's not been, or been strong, before. At MYOB, we look at our job as being translators: translating the language of business into the language of accounting. We need to use tools given to us by the authors of operating systems. The Mac side and OS X gives us a tool set that lets us do our jobs as translators better than any other tool set on the planet. It's up to us to use those tools to move up to the next level.

We threw a lot of rock yesterday, and we're throwing more rock this afternoon.

There's no question that the Mac is a niche player right now. But MYOB isn't a broad-based consumer company, so we can be more effective targeting niches than spending $40-$50 million on marketing. Intuit is a consumer marketing company and is trying to be everything to everybody. Our mission is to increase customers' efficiency and profitability. That may be a niche business in a niche market, but we think we fit in real well with the Mac.

I'm familiar with some of the cases he was involved in, and I wanted to pay my respects.

Intuit made their bed five years ago when they said they wouldn't be updating QuickBooks for the Mac. Now they're doing the same with QuickBooks for the Web. Obviously, they don't consider the Mac experience as important, but we do. Those who like the Mac platform should check us out.

I occasionally used to pop into Hammer House to say hello, cadge a drink or something and Jim was always great I also used to see a lot of him at Variety Club things, where he did wonderful work. He thoroughly deserved his knighthood.

I did radio, I did television, I did opera, I did films in which I had very, very little to say. But I had a lot of experience in front of the camera, and that's what really counts

I've been for 10 years trying to make something out of my life as an actor. I've learned a lot but I haven't done much that's worthwhile. So maybe if I make people wonder what I really do look like and make myself unrecognizable, they will be interested and intrigued, which eventually, of course, happened.

It's a band singing on how metal should be played, the effect it has on the band and its listeners.

I was once asked what I thought was the most disquieting thing you could see on the screen and I said, 'an open door.'

Once asked if he felt wearied by the constant onslaught of autograph seekers, actor Gregory Peck replied that he would be more worried when they stopped asking.

In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.

I think acting is a mixture of instinct, imagination and inventiveness. All you can learn as an actor is basic technique.

People should not pass judgment until they have seen the film.

Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff didn't like the word 'horror'. They, like I, went for the French description: 'the theatre of the fantastique'.

There are many vampires in the world today - you only have to think of the film business.

Acting is like a snowstorm or perhaps a large empty vacuum. I`m not deluded by the fact that I`m getting all these offers for work, I`m very happy about it, but I know also that there is the other side and who knows, next year, they may not offer me anything. You never know.

I stopped appearing as Dracula in 1972 because in my opinion the presentation of the character had deteriorated to such an extent, particularly bringing him into the contemporary day and age, that it really no longer had any meaning.

I have been metal all my life, only I did not know about it. The people in this album (Charlemagne) and I, share the same values.

I was always fascinated by fairy stories, fantasy, you know, demons, necromancers, gods and goddesses, everything that is out of our kin and out of our everyday world. I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am.

Johnny Depp, as far as I'm concerned, is number one. Of his generation, there's no one who can touch him. Some performers, today, it's like looking at holes in the air.

The Dracula movies are probably some of the most famous and enduring ones there are and I am very grateful to them, for sure.

I dont want to sound gloomy, but, at some point of your lives, every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. We used to do that with him so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again.

Someone asked me yesterday if Dracula met Saruman and there was a fight, who would win. I just looked at this man. What an idiotic thing to say. I mean, really, it was half-witted.

I think that - apart from the fields of science and medicine - we live in an age of decline. Look at the world. There is decline in morals, ideals, manners, respect, truthfulness: just about everything, in fact.

I've seen many men die right in front of me - so many in fact that I've become almost hardened to it. Having seen the worst that human beings can do to each other, the results of torture, mutilation and seeing someone blown to pieces by a bomb, you develop a kind of shell. But you had to. You had to. Otherwise we would never have won.

You could come in, know the proprietor, know the menu, know what you wanted to eat before you arrived and know you will be treated with friendship and respect and see someone you know.