- Peter Sellers was always a mixed-up guy, a childish fellow. But if you're fond of children, you're also fond of childish men. He was always very helpful to me. After he was famous and when I was still in trouble with the US embassy, he wrote a letter in support of me which was magnificent. But it is true that he was very cruel to his children. He was so hurt by the way children treat you when you're their father. I have been hurt by my children. But he was not in possession of a proper brain when it came to these things.
- Asylum (1972) was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.
- You know, I always do my best, no matter the quality of the film.
- For one of my scenes, the Hammer people wanted me to smash my head against a stone pillar, because they said they couldn't afford one made of rubber. I refused to beat my head against stone, of course.
- In English eyes, all foreigners are sinister.
- [on Alexander Mackendrick] He had a charming habit of losing his temper very frequently, but exclusively with the bosses, never with his cast.
- [on Alec Guinness] I remember Alec teaching me not to rehearse too much. Because I am a bit of a pedestrian, I like to rehearse until I know it all backwards. That was my school, but Alec taught me. He said, "If you know too much about it, it ceases to be fun."
- America would not let me in. I was suspected of being a fellow traveller, a Communist sympathiser. Everybody had Communist leanings. But I was not a lover of Communist regimes. And I admired America greatly, yet for many years I was not allowed in.
- I have spent my life learning other people's lines. Now I want to say some of my own. We are constantly told that our prime minister is a charlatan, a liar, a cheat, a poodle. Not once but 15 times a day. I have lived in Czechoslovakia, France and England and I have never known anything like it. You know, I am as scared of Clare Short as I am of Saddam Hussein. She can bring this government down, I think. As a woman I find her very attractive, but she is a pain in the arse. Tony Blair is a brilliant and brave prime minister. It must distress him that chopping off heads, which has become fashionable among those villains in the desert, is not considered as wicked as failing to find the so-called weapons of mass destruction.
- It was a godsend when I was offered the part. But it did become a double-edged sword as people started to associate me with Dreyfus. I loved playing the part of a blabbering lunatic of a police inspector. I think people like to see the police in such trouble; they enjoy seeing the inspector reduced to an utter, twitching wreck.
- It's my job to give my best. I can't give anything else.
- It was a godsend when I was offered the part. But it did become a double-edged sword as people started to associate me with Dreyfus and I lost a number of dramatic parts as a result of it.
- I owe Blake the fact that I've been doing comedy. When he called me for the first time, he said, 'You've been the heavy so often, but I think you're a funny man.'
- When you are tempted to say no, they offer you so much money it would be irresponsible to one's family, to one's children, to refuse.
- When I'm writing, there's nobody watching me. It's a terrible thing to be watched, either by the audience or by the camera.
- [on The Human Jungle (1963)] A boring part. All I had to do was sit behind a desk saying, 'And vot happened next?', and the terribly interesting patient got all the good bits.
- I must say that The Ladykillers (1955) is one of the few films I'm not ashamed to be associated with. It's a perfect little movie. I was appearing on stage in "The King and I", in my second year, and was desperately looking for something to get away from playing the King eight times a week, so I accepted an offer from the producer Michael Balcon to do "The Ladykillers". I had my head shaved for "The King and I", which is why I wear a hat in "The Ladykillers". I wouldn't have liked to wear a wig. Anyway, I play the kind of character who could have easily had his head shaved from his last stint in prison.
- [on asking him to wink after the "Pink Panther" films] I had a scene with Peter in my office. He said something like, 'Don't worry chief, I'll settle it,' and gave me an encouraging wink. So I started winking out of nervousness, and couldn't stop. It wasn't in the script but Blake Edwards loved it. But it became a problem. I made those films for 20 years, and after 10 years they ran out of good scripts. They used to say to me, 'Herbert, wink here, wink.' And I said, 'I'm not going to wink. You write a good scene and I won't have to wink'.
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