Top 123 Quotes & Sayings by Hugh Grant - Page 2

I quite like Pilates now. I have a Pilates girl in every city.

I'm not a great believer in marriages as an institution, or even in very long term relationships. I'm not sure we're built that way.

Comedy is probably a way of dealing with anxiety. Sometimes it's a way of dealing with pain.

I'm a terrible actor. I'm still learning. When I first started, I wish I knew then to trust myself more, really. I was in a terrible panic in the early part of my career.

I'm a great believer in eccentrically-shaped modern families. Because I've seen them work so well. And as long as everyone loves each other, it can work very well.

There were various turning points, but the main one at the beginning was that I was going off to do another degree in the history of art. I would have ended up as some art historian at Sotheby's or something.

Something about teaching is curiously attractive, actually. I don't know what it is.

The angry Scot is a cliche not without some foundation. That's the Lowland Scot - I'm a Highlander. We're particularly lovely and charming.

I think the part of my acting career where I've been more successful, I've been incredibly cushioned. People are much too nice to you. You go into politics, and people are absolutely brutal. You've got proper enemies, and they're vicious. It's very invigorating.

If every play was three weeks, I'd do lots of plays. It's just the idea of six months, I think, that might drive me a bit nuts.

I've always dreaded the sea - in fact, I get terribly seasick.

Although I'm largely doing other things in life, it's very nice occasionally to put my toe back in the waters of show business.

It's very rare in life to be sure about something - particularly when it's an issue.

I don't hate L.A., but I'm nervous about becoming one of those people who has a ferocious interest in how films did at the box office that weekend and, you know, would want to meet for egg-white omelets in the morning.

I suppose after 'Four Weddings' I was very busy for a bit, and I imagined that was my career, but I never had that thing of, 'I'm burning to be an actor. If I don't act, I'm not alive.' I've never had that.

Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No, No, No. Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No one ever said that was a good idea.

I'm horrible in the mornings. I'm grumpy.

If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you're 40 ft. high, it's rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it's actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can - to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.

Love scenes are extremely difficult. You're always within a millimeter of sentimentality and 'yuck.'

I don't want to see the end of popular print journalism.

I used to dream about Gorbachev before he lost power. I'd go into a panic because I was meeting him, and I had nothing to wear. I'd ask my brother what to do, and he'd tell me to wear my dressing gown. I'd tell him I can't - it's too horrible. He'd tell me to wear his as well. So I'd meet Gorbachev wearing two dressing gowns.

I'm very unrelaxed doing a newspaper interview.

I slightly lost my enthusiasm for most acting, but I've done some little bits and pieces - curiosities.

I wasn't aware I was trading on my good name; I've never had a good name.

I have this absurd syndrome where I get these out-of-the-blue, pathetic panic attacks. It'll be in a very easy, simple scene when everything is going swimmingly, and then suddenly, bang, I'm shvitzing and can't remember my lines.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of acting: character acting and lead acting. And in my life, to begin with, in the 1980s, it was all character acting. And then when, by fluke, through 'Four Weddings', I got into doing lead parts, it's a completely different thing.

I think marriage is only necessary if you've got children. It's quite nice for them.

I'm quite proud of some of the films I've done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they're unpretentious and entertaining. I'm proud of having made unpretentious choices.

I get more satisfaction out of comedy stuff. I'm a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.

Frankly, I think I'm marvelous in rehearsal! Then you turn the camera on, and it gets stiff and tight. And then you trudge back to your trailer feeling sad. That's been my experience of film acting.

I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed. Maybe I would have less gray hairs today.

There was a phase in my career in my late 20s and 30s when I was doing strange, arty-farty Euro films that were, you could tell, never had much chance of any release anywhere in the world.

I certainly hated actors and, more importantly, they hated me.

My contemporary art collection began with just needing to put things on the wall. I was looking around my Victorian house thinking, 'What would be the coolest is contemporary art - it will make me look young and interesting.' I'm more than 80 percent skeptical of the whole thing.

For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.

At home, I hardly ever leave London. I don't like the countryside in England.

When I finished my degree at Oxford, I went and acted for a bit. And I was appalling. And with each part, I thought, 'Well, that's embarrassing. I'd better do one more to show people I'm not that bad.' And, in fact, instead of a taking a year, that's gone on for 35 years.

I'm such a chronic relativist, I can't hold down a strong opinion about many things long enough.

All I know is for a number of years, if someone like me called police for a burglary, a mugging, or something happened to me, chances are that a photographer or reporter would turn up before a policeman.

I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!

My whole history of being an actor is unusual and slightly disgraceful because it should be something you burn to do.

A lot of actors look at scripts and think, 'How will this stretch me as an actor?' But I always thought, 'Do I want to turn the page? Is this going to make people laugh?'

I'm quite jealous of my Scottish relations, in whose culture everyone, in a Jane Austen kind of way, got married very young, when you're too young to be cynical or jaded and just started having children.

I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed.

I have known a few good marriages, but very few. And others look to me like they're pretty miserable. I don't really think that's a recipe for happiness.

It's always more fun to be an anti-hero. They're more interesting.

If it's a choice between doing a film and not doing a film, I'd rather not. But then, you remember that you're supposed to be earning a living and that it's your career.

Like lots of people who say, 'I'm going to write a novel,' it's actually more comfortable to think I could write a novel than to discover that you can't.

I think there's something unromantic about marriage. You're closing yourself off.

It's really frightening, American food on the whole. That's what always strikes me, coming from Europe: There's just so much of it! Then you plop down in front of the TV and watch ads for Weight Watchers. 'Lose weight now!' Well, eat less!

I've got four houses in my street. I live in two, and the others are empty. I'll buy more as they come up, because I think it would be great to have the entire street.

I don't do much acting anymore anyway, and not to work for 20th Century Fox is really the least of my worries.

After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.

Now [after doing Pilates], I have muscles of steel and could easily deal with giving birth.

There is space in the supermarket shelf for all of us.

I just don't believe in love at first sight any more, even though I've based my whole career on the concept.

My dad used to have to open the second bottle of wine in the loo in case Mum heard the cork coming out.

My grandmother was utterly convinced I'd wind up as the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, to be honest, I've never entirely ruled it out.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen the ads for the Wonder Bra. Is that really a problem in this country? Men not paying enough attention to women’s breasts?

I could do with more mobbing. Particularly from women. I'd like to be treated like Ricky Martin.