Top 40 Richard Attenborough Quotes

And there are certain things, and they are evident, obviously, without being boring about it, but I mean obviously, the two evident and easy ones being Gandhi and Cry Freedom, there are things which I do care about very much and which I would like to stand up and be counted.

I prefer fact to fiction.

If you’ve ever seen the film In Which We Serve, but it was about a destroyer in the Mediterranean.

I’m not a pyrotechnical director; I’m not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

I know I’m regarded as an establishment figure, but I was crucified by the establishment for ‘Oh! What a Lovely War’, ‘Gandhi’ and ‘Cry Freedom.’

My main aim in ‘Gandhi’ was to project him as the vanguard of non-violence. Nowhere in the world has a movement of non-cooperation sans violence received so much support from masses as Gandhi’s movement in India did. He was, to a great extent, responsible for freeing his nation from the British Raj.

I passionately believe in heroes, but I think the world has changed its criteria in determining who it describes as a hero.

I think ‘E.T.’ is a quite extraordinary piece of cinema.

When me and Sheila got married, all we had was an oval table, four chairs, a bed, and a painting by Matthew Smith.

I want to be remembered as a storyteller.

In the late 1940s, there weren’t any pop stars, and TV didn’t exist.

When I’m directing a movie, nothing else matters.

The family is the focal point of our existence. And up until Jane and Lucy’s death, there were always 16 of us together for Christmas.

I don’t really like the Oscars; it’s a commercial promotional event. It helps immeasurably to sell films, but it’s hardly the Nobel prize.

Well, I think In Love and War, which had a wonderful performance by Sandy, Sandra Bullock, who the authorities and, the supposed authorities, in cinema didn’t want to know about.

I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody’s life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.

You act in a movie, and at the end of the day, the director and editor decide what your performance is.

I adore my family; they are my joy. However, I am committed to my work. If, on a Saturday morning when I was ostensibly going to be with the children, and something arose at RADA or at UNICEF or at the orphanage or whatever, I would allow the other pressures to take precedent.

I think there were times when, if circumstances had developed, I might have been tempted into politics. I am a fan of Tony Blair. I think Gordon Brown is a fine man, but I think he’s headed for one hell of a bloody struggle.

My family were liberal with a small ‘l’ but passionately doers. I wanted to be a doer.

If someone says they’re going to ring me at 10 o’clock and it’s 10 past and they haven’t rung, I’m irritated.

The old adage about acting – that it’s 98% energy and 2% talent – is true, you know.

I was on my own union council for twenty-odd years.

What I am sad about is that there is now, in America, no equivalent to the art circuit.

I can’t write, I can’t paint, I don’t compose.

Well, you cannot think of cinema now, and you cannot think of cinema in the UK and not place Chaplin in the most extraordinary elevated context, if there can be such a thing, in that he was a genius, he was unique.

Say what you will about ‘Miracle on 34th Street’; I can take my grandchildren to it. If I had a maiden aunt, I could take her, or my ma and pa if they were alive.

I know Pandit Ravi Shankar was very upset with me, as I did not use his compositions in ‘Gandhi.’ I thought that the London Philharmonic Orchestra would prove more effective than his music. It was one of my biggest miscalculations.

‘E.T.’ depended absolutely on the concept of cinema, and I think that Steven Spielberg, who I’m very fond of, is a genius.

I’m a passionate trade unionist.

I came from a family who believed in, in quotes, the Rights of Man: who believed that in order to justify the sort of luxurious life that the majority of us have, related to the whole world, that you had to do something.

I do care about style. I do care, but I only care about style that serves the subject.

I believe in trade unionism, and I believe in democracy, in democratic trade unionism.

At my age the only problem is with remembering names. When I call everyone darling, it has damn all to do with passionately adoring them, but I know I’m safe calling them that. Although, of course, I adore them too.

There’s nothing more important in making movies than the screenplay.

If someone does something in an entertainment/pop ambience, that person becomes someone who has an impact on the conduct and attitude of a huge number of people who peripherally come in contact with them.

The problem is, you see, I’ve just got so many subjects I want to direct.

‘Gandhi’ was a well-made film but surely not my best. It had flaws, which I understand two-and-a-half decades after I directed it. I will never call it a propaganda film for the Indian Congress, but it could have been made better had I concentrated on certain minute details.

What actually happened with ‘Miracle’ was that someone saw me in ‘Jurassic Park’ and said, ‘We want someone with a white beard – how about him?’ I’ve got a round face, white hair, a white beard. I can wear half-moon glasses and waddle a little, cope with a cane, raise my hat.

I think Tom Paine is one of the greatest men that’s ever lived.