Paul Scofield Quotations

Cheating on a quiz show? That's sort of like plagiarizing a comic strip.

Sixty-four thousand dollars for a question, I hope they are asking you the meaning of life.

I should in fairness add that my taste in music is reputedly deplorable.

A book is worth a few francs; we Germans can afford to destroy those. We all may not appreciate artistic merit, but cash value is another matter.

A painting means as much to you as a string of pearls to an ape.

If you look around the table and you can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.

What these books have conclusively proven is that the diffence between men and women is exactly 38 pages.

Privacy is not negotiable.

Oh, I suppose my wife and I will open a bottle of champagne with another couple.

King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare — or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.

I found at this point that effective acting wasn't what I wanted to do, that I didn't want to make effects, that I wanted, as it were, to leave an impression of a particular kind of human being.

I decided a long time ago I didn't want to be a star personality and live my life out in public. I don't think it's a good idea to wave personality about like a flag and become labeled.

It isn't difficult to leave King Lear or Macbeth, but once you have gone back to yourself, you want it to be the same self you have always been.

As you get older, the more you know, so the more nervous you become. The risks are much bigger.

The Actor should make you forget the existence of author and director, and even forget the actor.