Anthony Hopkins said America has been very generous to me

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.

[Interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio (1994)] I once asked a Jesuit priest what was the best short prayer he knew. He said, "Fuck it,' as in, "Fuck it; it's in God's hands."

The Welsh people have a talent for acting that one does not find in the English. The English lack heart.

[December 1998] To hell with this stupid show business, this ridiculous showbiz, this futile waste of life. I look back and see a desert wasteland. All those years spent in a fake environment. Everything was a fake.

[on becoming a U.S. citizen in 2000] America has been very generous to me, magnanimous really. I thought it would be good to give something back. It was a decision of the heart.

[on his days as an alcoholic, when he was drinking Mexican Spirit tequila] I was really sort of on a prolonged acid trip. I saw things and had peculiar quasi-religious experiences. I thought I was John The Baptist, and I would talk to the sea at Malibu and the sea would talk back to me. It was weird.

[on his most famous character, Dr. Hannibal Lecter] I think he might be a very interesting person to have lunch with, provided that YOU weren't the lunch.

One of the people I got to know years ago, which was a great privilege, was Laurence Olivier. He was like a laser - that was his power. And the only actor I've met since who had that same quality of laser-like determination is Russell Crowe. The first day I started working with him, I thought, "That guy's got it." The best way to describe Russell is, he's like a shark circling round. He was argumentative. He argued with the director all the time. I don't know Russell that well, but I admire him, and you know, whatever he's got to do really. I really like him because he's ballsy, he's got guts, he's macho and all the rest of it. He's going through his bad boy period, but he's basically a nice guy.

I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.

Being a smoker is like being trapped in a complicated maze. It's as if Allen Carr has a plan of the maze. Instantly I was freed from my addiction.

Acting is still enjoyable, but there are no more challenges any more for me. No, none at all. I'm much more interested in painting and composing music these days. I've become what I always wanted to be, a jobbing actor. I'm just detached, I do my thing. I work hard at it, but I don't invest my life in it. As long as they pay me on time and I get a good script with a good director, I have fun. That's all.