Christopher Lee quotes:

One of the first things a British visitor to Southern California discovers is that he must have a car. Freeways. Bad public transport. I took driving lessons.

The Impossible Dream' is, in my opinion, one of the greatest songs ever written. Here is a man, an old man, a very old man full of daring, bravery, courage, determination, romanticism and dreams.

My great-grandmother was born in London, the daughter of a Brixton coachman, and became the most famous singer in Australia. Her name was Marie Carandini, Madame Carandini.

I don't really like long flights any more - I find them too tiring. Flying always involves the same things these days - huge crowds at airports, waiting around, late take-offs, weather problems, and so on. I don't really enjoy travelling. I don't imagine anyone does except young children.

When the Second World War finished, I was 23, and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much.

When I was very young - around the age of nine - my family used to go to a house in Somerset that my stepfather rented every summer. There was fishing, lakes and riding.

The secret to a long marriage in the film industry? Marry someone wonderful, as I did. And always have her come along on location.

Before 'Lord of the Rings,' some people would have just classed Peter Jackson as a horror director. But there is a mind there.

On the Italian side, we can trace the family back 2,000 years. I have a cousin in Rome, a famous archaeologist, Count Andrea Carandini, who was in Lombardy and came across some pottery with the original name of the family, Carandinus, painted on it.

My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often.

The saddest country I went to was Romania, years ago, during Ceausescu's rule.

Someone asked me yesterday if Dracula met Saruman and there was a fight, who would win. I just looked at this man. What an idiotic thing to say. I mean, really, it was half-witted.

Comedy is the most difficult thing to do. Easily the most difficult.

You can learn Elvish, if you want. It's a language like Italian and English. You can learn to read it, you can learn to write it, and you can learn to speak it.

I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers.

I've always acknowledged my debt to Hammer. I've always said I'm very grateful to them. They gave me this great opportunity, made me a well known face all over the world for which I am profoundly grateful.

Let's just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read into that what they like.

I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved.

In 1956, the success of the Hammer films kick-started my career. That immediately gave me a name and a face to go with it. I will always be grateful to Hammer for that.

What's really important for me is, as an old man, I'm known by my own generation and the next generation know me, too.

It's what you don't see that keeps you on the edge of your seat in any kind of film - leave it to the imagination of the viewer.

I didn't want to be known as a man who only made horror films. I made some - very few.

We don't live in a particularly attractive world. I don't really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world.

I've seen many men die right in front of me - so many in fact that I've become almost hardened to it. Having seen the worst that human beings can do to each other, the results of torture, mutilation and seeing someone blown to pieces by a bomb, you develop a kind of shell. But you had to. You had to. Otherwise we would never have won.

I knew Vincent Price from films - he was a big movie star - but the first time I met him was when we filmed 'The Oblong Box.'

I was attached to the SAS from time to time, but we are forbidden - former, present, or future - to discuss any specific operations.

I made three films with Boris Karloff. He was absolutely wonderful.

I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.

The thing I have always tried to do is surprise people: to present them with something they didn't expect.

If I had any deadly secrets, I wouldn't still be alive.

I thought that people should know about the dangers of Satanism, and diabolism does exist - there's no question about it.

Acting is like a snowstorm or perhaps a large empty vacuum. I`m not deluded by the fact that I`m getting all these offers for work, I`m very happy about it, but I know also that there is the other side and who knows, next year, they may not offer me anything. You never know.

I think that - apart from the fields of science and medicine - we live in an age of decline. Look at the world. There is decline in morals, ideals, manners, respect, truthfulness: just about everything, in fact.

Somebody once asked me how I found Peter Jackson, and I said: 'Well, I parted his hair, and there he was.'

Films are now made by accountants. They pick a pretty young female or male face out of the air and give them a part - not because they think that person is right for it or is ready for it, but because they think that person will make them money.

There are certain things producers ask you to do, and when I was starting out, I said yes to everything. I was asked, for 'Quo Vadis,' to drive a chariot. I said, 'Oh yes. I'm licenced for all vehicles.' Two days later, I was sitting in this dustbin with two very aggressive horses. I didn't stay in it for long.

Acting as a profession came to me by chance: in 1946, after the war, I was having lunch with my cousin, who was the Italian ambassador, and he asked, 'What are you going to do now you're out of uniform?' I said, 'I'm pretty inventive, and I can imitate people,' and he said, 'Have you thought about being an actor?'

To be a legend, you've either got to be dead or excessively old!

When I first read 'Lord of the Rings,' I wanted to see a film of it. But at that time, the technology wasn't there; there was no such thing as CGI.

A whole new career opened up for me when I was in 'Lord Of The Rings' and 'Star Wars.'

I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am.

Ian Fleming was my cousin, you know. He was in naval intelligence.

There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing.

As far as I am concerned, Don Quixote is the most metal fictional character that I know. Single handed, he is trying to change the world, regardless of any personal consequences.

There was a gap of seven years between the first and second Dracula movies. In the second one as everybody knows, I didn't speak, because I said I couldn't say the lines.

I haven't spent my entire career playing the guy in the bad hat, although I have to say that the bad guy is frequently much more interesting than the good guy.

I've worked with Tim Burton five times, and it's just like being part of a family; life doesn't get much better than that.

There are many vampires in the world today... you only have to think of the film business.

I don't think anyone has ever succeeded in putting Ian Fleming's James Bond up on the screen. The closest in my opinion is Pierce Brosnan.

Ian Fleming was my cousin, and he wanted me to play Dr. No, but by the time he got around to remembering to tell the producers, they'd already cast someone else. Spilt milk!

The most important film I made, in terms of its subject and the great responsibility I had as an actor, was a film I did about the founder of Pakistan called 'Jinnah.'

My father's family can be traced back to 1400. I've been told by gypsies that there is unmistakeably gypsy blood in me. Lee is a gypsy name, you know.

I turn to the 'Telegraph's' obituaries page with trepidation.

I don't play long parts. They must be short parts, but they've got to be parts that mean something, that matter, where people will notice when I'm on the screen, and people will remember the character after they've seen the film.

I was once asked what I thought was the most disquieting thing you could see on the screen and I said, 'an open door.'

I dont want to sound gloomy, but, at some point of your lives, every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. We used to do that with him so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again.

Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff didn't like the word 'horror'. They, like I, went for the French description: 'the theatre of the fantastique'.

The Dracula movies are probably some of the most famous and enduring ones there are and I am very grateful to them, for sure.

We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not.

Making films has never just been a job to me, it is my life. I have some interests outside of acting - I sing and I've written books, for instance - but acting is what keeps me going, it's what I do, it gives life purpose.

I was always fascinated by fairy stories, fantasy, you know, demons, necromancers, gods and goddesses, everything that is out of our kin and out of our everyday world. I was always interested in enchantment and magicians and still am.

I have been metal all my life, only I did not know about it. The people in this album (Charlemagne) and I, share the same values.

I stopped appearing as Dracula in 1972 because in my opinion the presentation of the character had deteriorated to such an extent, particularly bringing him into the contemporary day and age, that it really no longer had any meaning.

Johnny Depp, as far as I'm concerned, is number one. Of his generation, there's no one who can touch him. Some performers, today, it's like looking at holes in the air.

There are many vampires in the world today - you only have to think of the film business.

I lived for 10 years in Los Angeles, and the one element that surpasses everything else - that you are very conscious of - is fear. You can smell it.

I've been for 10 years trying to make something out of my life as an actor. I've learned a lot but I haven't done much that's worthwhile. So maybe if I make people wonder what I really do look like and make myself unrecognizable, they will be interested and intrigued, which eventually, of course, happened.

I think acting is a mixture of instinct, imagination and inventiveness. All you can learn as an actor is basic technique.

Once asked if he felt wearied by the constant onslaught of autograph seekers, actor Gregory Peck replied that he would be more worried when they stopped asking.

It's a band singing on how metal should be played, the effect it has on the band and its listeners.

Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.

I did radio, I did television, I did opera, I did films in which I had very, very little to say. But I had a lot of experience in front of the camera, and that's what really counts

I've done a lot of films that have become iconic, not necessarily because of me.

The song "My Way" is a very remarkable song. It is also difficult to sing because you've got to convince people that what you're singing about is the truth. It's a man who is very proud of having achieved everything that he's achieved his way.

Peter Jackson's instincts are extraordinary, as is his stamina.

People should not pass judgment until they have seen the film.

In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.