Dominic Monaghan quotes:

I have been heartbroken once and it has affected all my relationships from there on. But now I look at it as a occupational hazard. If you are in the meat market at some point you are gonna get mad cows disease.

When I was at college, I worked in a department store called Brit Home Stores, which is a pretty lackluster department store, selling clothes for middle-aged women. My job was to walk the floor and find anything that was damaged, take it to the store room and log it.

I think a lot of young kids at school are very conscious of trying to keep credibility in case they kind of stand out in a crowd and get bullied by trying to stay cool and stuff. And my whole thing, all the way through school, was I was just a goof... I didn't care.

Holidays are all different depending on the company and time of your life.

If you look at little kids and wild animals, these are two groups of things that whenever I'm with them forces me to be in the moment.

We're electrical items and when we die the electricity goes somewhere else. When we die our energy goes into the galaxy.

I enjoy the preparatory elements of travel - packing my bags and choosing my outfits - but my favourite part is getting there.

People have a fear of the unknown. Insects have different senses than us, different amount of limbs and their body structure is very different. It's hard for us to really relate to them and understand them.

I was the class clown so I was used to performing and fooling around in front of my friends.

I've always traveled, as a kid my parents moved me around, a different place in Germany every four years. But I got the travel bug when I was a kid, living in different countries.

My favorite movie of all time is probably 'Apocalypse Now.'

If I had a choice as to my perfect career, I would make a couple of films a year and then concentrate on natural history.

I've worked on films where the budgets are almost limitless and you're in trailers that are bigger than a hotel room. You're taken care of and the food is amazing, the quality of the job is amazing and then you work on smaller things but it never dictates my happiness or my willingness to go to work.

What I'm attempting to do is to show people that if I can spend some time with very dangerous spiders and snakes and scorpions, then maybe they'll feel different about the spiders and snakes they find around their areas. I don't need people to keep them as pets. I just like them to be respectful and see that everything in nature has its place.

Television is face acting, and film is eye acting.

I've had a fair amount of experience with snakes, and I find them to be pretty honest in terms of how you read their body language and emotions. They'll tell you when they're grumpy. They'll tell you when they're okay.

My parents are pretty cool people.

I get involved with projects based on three parameters - the script, the actors involved and the director.

My mom and dad just loved the fact that I fooled around. They just embraced it. They'd always kind of enjoy it, and they liked it when I made them laugh.

My brother's a teacher in Costa Rica and actually does a more important and significant job than I will ever do.

I have a natural curiosity about things, in general. I'm constantly trying to find out how things work and how I can put them back together again, and why they work that way. The natural world is all around us.

I'm a movie nut. I go to the movies probably twice a week, and if I'm not doing anything at night, I'm usually watching a movie or two.

When I go on holiday, I go to places that have animals I'm interested in.

I love having the opportunity to surf.

The term 'geek' for me is like you having a passion, interest in something that is unabashed and you don't care if people think it's not cool. You think it's cool and that's your thing.

I like learning new stuff, and continuing to educate myself as best I can.

I have a lot of respect for marriage.

Probably a concern to either a major or minor degree with most actors if they're really motivated to kind of make a significant difference in the business is the 'pigeon-holing' thing.

What would it take for me to eat human flesh? If that was the only way to stay alive, I would. I would eat anything.

I'm constantly exposing myself to art and that inspires me.

Not being busy is something I worry about, but I think work begets work.

Here's an interesting thing about L.A. - it's overrun with black widow spiders. I could find you one on the street in 10 minutes.

If I could uninvent anything, I would uninvent Hitler's mum, guns and broccoli.

I'd love to play a gangster but I think people might say I looked a bit too young and cheeky to play a character who'd just blown someones head off!

I could always flip between emotions and be available to suddenly do something new. I think it's a part of playing, and you hang onto it when you're a kid.

My mom and dad just loved the fact that I fooled around. They just embraced it. They'd always kind of enjoy it, and they liked it when I made them laugh

I think we are all interested in end-times ideas and also in the current climate that we are all living in, where money is a little harder to come by, things continue to get expensive; gas prices are not too far from people's heads. There are more and more people. Human society's going to have real problems.

I'd like to go on a hardcore safari in Africa, something off the beaten track with anti-poaching people and camping out in the savannah.

I was never a big guy in pubs. I was never the main kind of aggressor or anything like that, but I found myself in trouble because I always had a mouth that would come back with something, and there was just never anyone who could make me be quiet.

I like films that deal with some of those questions that you can never answer: 'Why are we here? What's it about? What happens to us with the choices that we make? What are the ramifications for doing something right, or doing something wrong?' Those universal questions, I enjoy.

If you woke up, every day, and someone punched you in the face, for the first week, you'd go, 'Why is someone punching me in the face?' But, by the time you got through week two, you'd take it and just go on with the day.

I like relationships and being in love, but I also like being single - you have to embrace all those different things.

I never thought I could learn much from a dog or cat. They sleep when we sleep. They eat when we eat. I'm into observing animals being as wild as they can be in a captive environment.

I'm a big fan of the misunderstood, the vilified, the underdog, the breaking of myths.

I don't need to have three feather pillows in my trailer. I just don't work that way.

I've got a hectic schedule, but I wouldn't have my life any other way.

I used to get quite upset that I'd make friends with a guy or a girl and then within the space of three years we'd move and go and live somewhere else, and you'd have to say goodbye to that person.

I love going to work. I love being on-set everyday. It feeds me; it's exciting.

I don't say anything unintentionally.

The number one thing for me is diversity. I always want to ensure that people can't put me in a box. I can play a bad guy, I can play a good guy, I can play a good bad guy, I can be the host of a show, I can be serious, and I can be funny.

I'm turned on by diversity. I'm turned on by things that are different. I like different animals, I like different ways of travel, and I like different people.

I think everyone's a geek in some way.

Bureaucratic nonsense at airports drives me crazy.

My job, at the very least, doesn't change at all.

I guess we're living in a pretty sensitive world and there's nothing you can do about that.

My job is to try and present the most fully-rounded character that I can, and bring a performance that people believe in.

Obviously the idea of being human is a very human idea.

All those animals that were in the cages, I would spend a lot of time in those cages with the animals in-between shots, just hanging out, because I prefer animals to humans. If I get an opportunity to be with them, I'll usually take it.

I really liked German food. And it's very clean.. It's a very clean country. They kind of get rid of the waste really well.. the garbage.

I think if you've held onto a character for several years and then you're getting rid of that character, it's going to be traumatic.

I hope to be an actor and never retire.

When I choose projects, I don't stipulate between film or theatre or television. I receive scripts and I read scripts - and when I read a script that's good, I then get married to it and talk to my agent about what happens next.

Human beings have a bunch of different dimensions, so even if you're playing someone who you think maybe the audience might not like, might not be going for, you still have to give them the dimensions to make them a real human, otherwise there's no point.

No human beings are one-dimensional, and if they feel one-dimensional to you, it's because you don't know them.

One of my jobs as an actor, regardless of who I play - even if I'm playing a despicable character - is to make people think that that character could exist, that he's real, and the way to do that is to make him believable. He doesn't have to be likable or charming, but he just has to be believable. That is someone who I could see on a bus. That is someone who I could walk past in the street.

No one ever told me when I was growing up that make-up and skirts were just for girls. If you're confident and you own it, [the other kids] are fine with it...I've always supported the lifestyle that I will do what I please and deal with it.

If you pay a little bit of attention to something, and then let it go, and then come back to it, and then pay a little bit of attention to something, that's nice and healthy.

I love animals. I love being around them.

I've learnt that the world over, everyone's essentially the same. We are all trying to have a nice time and get along with things.

My ultimate search has been for a muse.

I grew up a massive Beatles fan.

I like to work fast and I like to work intensively.

I'm in this position where I can afford to wait, I'm lucky enough to be financially secure to not have to do anything that's thrown at me. You know the next couple of jobs are going to be pretty crucial in terms of how you're perceived by people. So I'm just waiting.

I don't tend to go out that much.

My best takes aren't necessarily take five or take six. My best takes are usually take two.

I can easily say "no" to a project if the script isn't great, but when the script is good, then I start asking the other questions. Who's going to direct it? Who's the creator? Who are the actors? When are we shooting? Where is it shooting? All that kind of stuff.

I always pick what I consider to be good scripts.

My brain kind of rolls pretty fast when I'm conscious. It's constantly looking for stuff to do. Like if I'm in my house and I'm hanging out, I tend to be listening to music whilst watching a film whilst sending e-mails.

Life is all about finding challenges for yourself that you want to try to achieve.

I think if you're an actor, then you can work on stage - but if you've never done it before, you're going to have picked up a few things that you're going to need to change when you're working on stage.

I won't miss having to stand for two hours at 4:30 a.m. and have freezing cold glue applied to my feet. I won't miss two-hour drives to work or long, long, long days sitting in my trailer waiting...waiting...waiting. I won't miss one day off a week. I won't miss glue in my ears. But I would do it all again tomorrow.