Timothy Spall

In 1996, when I was being treated for leukaemia, at one point I had a vicious infection that was trying to claim me. Mercifully, due to love and expertise, I pulled through.

I do believe in the power of love.

I love a cinema with two people in it. Love it! Absolutely love it!

I'm sick of having an opinion on everything. Getting older, you learn all sorts of things you're supposed to, but I feel like it's time, when you get older, through experience, to... I started to feel quite... what's the word? ... intimidated by seeing both sides of everything.

You create a proto-human being out of people that you've encountered in your life, and you start building up this person and start becoming this person.

I don't play the lottery, as I feel I have been really lucky in what I have been able to do in my life, but if I did win, it would be the usual things - helping out the people I love. I'd probably squander a few quid on all sorts of unnecessary crap!

Life is a massive amount of feelings with the occasional profound engagement with intellect. As I get older, I hope the intellect takes over.

You never know what is going to happen to you in life.

As you get older and more thoughtful, you carry stuff with you. Your kids get older, you take on their sorrows, you enjoy their triumphs. Life doesn't always go to plan.

You're immortal, aren't you, until you get a little peek over the precipice. The thought of death...You're not supposed to start pondering it until you're old. And there's nothing like being told you've got a life-threatening disease to concentrate your mind on that.

I believe that a world that doesn't have some kind of magic in it wouldn't be worth living in.

There's two types of character actors. There's character actors who play all different characters. Or there's actors who always play the same part; they're just a bit funny-looking.