Simon Callow Quotes

• To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.

  Simon Callow

  Space, Imagination, Theatre

  52 Copy quote

• I am never bored, never short of anything to do and I don't even ever feel lonely. I am quite gregarious and I get out and about a lot, but sometimes it is just wonderful to be on your own.

  Simon Callow

  Lonely, Bored, Sometimes

  4 Copy quote

• Childhood didn't have a big influence on me, really - in fact I spent most of it plotting how to escape.

  Simon Callow

  Childhood, Facts, Influence

  6 Copy quote

• I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.

  Simon Callow

  Theatre, Way, Facts

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

• There is something essentially sanguine about me, which I am inclined to attribute to the fact that I was born by caesarean section. It must affect you.

  Simon Callow

  Facts, Born, Sanguine

  "A life in the arts: Simon Callow". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• Having caught a glimpse of what I might be able to do with my talent, I feel a tremendous obligation to try to fulfill it.

  Simon Callow

  Trying, Glimpse, Might

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• Everything that we have gone through, are going through, and will go through is there in Shakespeare. It is all of human life.

  Simon Callow

  Gone, Human Life, Humans

  4 Copy quote

• To live another person's life is quite a weird thing.

  Simon Callow

  Life Is, Weird Things, Persons

  7 Copy quote

• I've come to this conclusion: What makes a great actor is great need. A huge need of acting.

  Simon Callow

  Acting, Needs, Actors

  6 Copy quote

• When the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back as a feature film a few years ago, one national newspaper ran a poll to ask its readers who should be the new Doctor, and I topped it.

  Simon Callow

  Doctors, Years, Film

  7 Copy quote

• Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.

  Simon Callow

  Kings, Needs, Dementia

  4 Copy quote

• Shakespeare speaks for the human heart but Dickens speaks for the social man and for injustices.

  Simon Callow

  Heart, Men, Injustice

  4 Copy quote

• Like many Catholics, I was very affected by the personality of Jesus and that impression, pious as it was, has stayed with me.

  Simon Callow

  Jesus, Personality, Catholic

  4 Copy quote

• Increasingly I've come to think that what's at the core of acting is thinking. Most people would say it's feeling.

  Simon Callow

  Thinking, People, Feelings

  4 Copy quote

• My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.

  Simon Callow

  Mother, Teacher, College

  4 Copy quote

• I don't practise any religion but I am deeply interested in the answers that mankind has come up with to explain the human situation.

  Simon Callow

  Answers, Come Up, Mankind

  4 Copy quote

• I hated Sundays when I was growing up in Streatham, south London. Everything closed down and stopped.

  Simon Callow

  Growing Up, Sunday, Down And

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• I went to Queen's University Belfast and stayed nine months, then I ran away to be an actor.

  Simon Callow

  Queens, Actors, Nine

  4 Copy quote

• I'd like to direct more operas.

  Simon Callow

  Opera, Direct

  4 Copy quote

• The elderly are all someone's flesh and blood and we cannot just shut them in a cupboard and hand over the responsibility for taking care of them to the state.

  Simon Callow

  Responsibility, Elderly, Blood

  9 Copy quote

• Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.

  Simon Callow

  Real, Phones, People

  5 Copy quote

• Jesus is absolutely at the centre of Western civilisation and part of my fascination with him is, why? What is it about this particular man and his story?

  Simon Callow

  Jesus, Men, Fascination

  4 Copy quote

• I would say critically of myself that I am somebody without secrets. Sometimes acting depends on you having a secret. I don't think I've ever had that.

  Simon Callow

  Thinking, Secret, Acting

  4 Copy quote

• I actually wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to be an actor.

  Simon Callow

  Long, Actors, Wanted

  "A life in the arts: Simon Callow" by Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. December 24, 2011.

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• You could say Shakespeare is so extraordinary precisely because he was so ordinary. He had all the usual anxieties and understandings of what it is to have children, lose children, get married, struggle to make a living and so on.

  Simon Callow

  Children, Struggle, Anxiety

  4 Copy quote

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