Guinness: "Failure has a thousand explanations. Success doesn't need one."

Guinness: "An actor is an interpreter of other men's words, often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not, a craftsman, a bag of tricks, a vanity bag, a cool observer of mankind, a child and at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents."

Guinness: "I don't know what else I could do but pretend to be an actor."

Guinness: "An actor is totally vulnerable. His total personality is exposed to critical judgment - his intellect, his bearing, his diction, his whole appearance. In short, his ego."

Guinness: "Essentially, I'm a small-part actor who's been lucky enough to play leading roles for most of his life."

Guinness: "We live in an age of apologies. Apologies, false or true, are expected from the descendants of empire builders, slave owners, persecutors of heretics and from men who, in our eyes, just got it all wrong. So with the age of 85 coming up shortly, I want to make an apology. It appears I must apologize for being male, white and European."

Guinness: "I gave my best performances during the war, trying to be an officer and a gentleman."

Guinness: "An actor is at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents."

Guinness: "Once I've done a film, it's finished. I never look at it again."

Guinness: "Getting to the theater on the early side, usually about seven o'clock, changing into a dressing-gown, applying make-up, having a chat for a few minutes with other actors and then, quite unconsciously, beginning to assume another personality which would stay with me, but mostly tucked inside, until curtain down, was all I required of life. I thought it bliss."

Guinness: "Personally, I have only one great regret - that I never dared enough. If at all."

Guinness: "I am always ashamed of the slowness of my reading. I think it stems from the fact that when I come across dialogue in a novel, I can't resist treating it as the text of a play and acting it out, with significant pauses and all."

Guinness: "Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows it?"

[Describing himself as a boy]

Guinness: "A shy child, thoroughly unprepossessing. Not good at sports, not academically inclined, not handsome, not rich, and not likely to improve. One wonders that one was not stoned to death in the street."

Guinness: "Flamboyance doesn't suit me. I enjoy being elusive."

Guinness: "Pride played a part in my decision to retire. I don't wish to be seen as I am now when I know there was something better on offer 30 years ago."

Guinness: "I prefer full-length camera shots because the body can act better than the face."