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

Richard Attenborough

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

Richard Attenborough

I like to make films about people who changed the lives of others and asserted human dignity.

Richard Attenborough

And I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

Richard Attenborough

If I were able to write, I probably would. But movies have given me a part of my life where I can express feelings and bring convictions to an audience as if I could write. So I made 'Gandhi' about human relations, prejudice and the empire. In 'Cry Freedom' I expressed my horror and disgust about apartheid.

Richard Attenborough

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.

Richard Attenborough

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

Richard Attenborough

We used to indulge hopelessly as a family at Christmas. When the children were little, I dressed up as Father Christmas. They knew it was a gag, but they loved it. I remember stealing into their bedrooms at 1 A.M. and filling the stockings up at the end of the bed.

Richard Attenborough

'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.

Richard Attenborough

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.

Richard Attenborough

In other words, if you - the cost of promoting movies, the advertising and promotion of a movie, the budget is almost as large as the cost of the movie.

Richard Attenborough

Ben Kingsley was my ideal choice for Gandhi, and he really lived up to the expectations of an international audience. I did not find any Indian actor worthy to perform the role of Gandhi in the early Eighties, though there were brilliant performers like Naseeruddin Shah in India.

Richard Attenborough

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

Richard Attenborough

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.

Richard Attenborough

I prefer fact to fiction.

Richard Attenborough

I don't read a great deal of fiction, to my shame, other than the classics.

Richard Attenborough

I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.

Richard Attenborough

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

Richard Attenborough

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

Richard Attenborough

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.

Richard Attenborough

Richard Attenborough Quotes

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

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

I like to make films about people who changed the lives of others and asserted human dignity.

And I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

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

We used to indulge hopelessly as a family at Christmas. When the children were little, I dressed up as Father Christmas. They knew it was a gag, but they loved it. I remember stealing into their bedrooms at 1 A.M. and filling the stockings up at the end of the bed.

'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.

In other words, if you - the cost of promoting movies, the advertising and promotion of a movie, the budget is almost as large as the cost of the movie.

Ben Kingsley was my ideal choice for Gandhi, and he really lived up to the expectations of an international audience. I did not find any Indian actor worthy to perform the role of Gandhi in the early Eighties, though there were brilliant performers like Naseeruddin Shah in India.

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

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.

I prefer fact to fiction.

I don't read a great deal of fiction, to my shame, other than the classics.

I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.

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

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

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.