Gabriel Byrne quotes

Presents don't really mean much to me. I don't want to sound mawkish, but - it was the realization that I have a great many people in my life who really love me, and who I really love. (Gabriel Byrne)

I think there's a bit of the devil in everybody. There's a bit of a priest in everybody, too, but I enjoyed playing the devil more. He was more fun.

Gabriel Byrne

Not to oversimplify it, somebody once said a good rule of thumb in interpreting a character is to find the good in the bad people that you portray and the bad in the good.

Gabriel Byrne

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

Gabriel Byrne

I attended the bedside of a friend who was dying in a Dublin hospital. She lived her last hours in a public ward with a television blaring out a football match, all but drowning our final conversation.

Gabriel Byrne

It's actually pretty complex, because there's two levels of reality in the narrative. One is what really took place, and the other is Spider's poisoned version of what took place.

Gabriel Byrne

I would like to break out of this dark, brooding image, cause I'm actually not like that at all.

Gabriel Byrne

Viking women were able to rule kingdoms, divorce husbands, own land, and Vikings were very progressive in terms of the rights of women.

Gabriel Byrne

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

Gabriel Byrne

Corporations are the new dictators.

Gabriel Byrne

The priest's breath was sour and hot as he moved towards me...Then there was blackness...I remembered every single moment up to a point...Then it's concreted over. What's buried there? Is it something worth exhuming?..Yes. Maybe if I say it, it will lose its power over me. (Gabriel Byrne)

We now prefer the fantasy...We find comfort in the lies. I was the victim of that for so long. I imbibed everything. It led to a place where I became extremely unhappy. And now I question everything. I believe it's a responsibility to do it.

Gabriel Byrne

I had one of the best days of my life. I spent the afternoon with my two kids and my ex-wife at Serendipity. Then I came to the theater, and you know, I think I did the play the best I've ever done it.

Gabriel Byrne

I think that if you can convey a kind of a complexity, a mystery, a truth in stillness, that, to me, is really worth striving for, and I totally agree with Michael Fassbender in that less is more. If it's going on inside you, the camera will find it.

Gabriel Byrne

A completely disrespectful photographer was asked to stop taking photographs, and then said, 'I've got what I want. What are you going to do about it?' How would you feel if somebody walked up and started taking your photograph? I don't think you'd be very happy.

Gabriel Byrne

What is that song that Willie Nelson sang? 'Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few.' I think of that. No big deal. I've reached a stage in my life where I am content.

Gabriel Byrne

It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'

Gabriel Byrne

From doing A Moon for the Misbegotten, I've learned that nobody's love can save anybody else. There are people who want to die, and nothing or nobody will stop them. The only one who can save you is yourself.

Gabriel Byrne

I don't think we're living in great times for movies, to tell you the truth.

Gabriel Byrne

I thought to myself, there's a man who gave up his life to serve others - to touch people in that way is probably the greatest thing you can do as a human being.

Gabriel Byrne

I'm not a very gregarious person. I can't bear attention being called to me in a public place, which is ridiculous in a business that pays you to be noticed. (Gabriel Byrne)

The Catholic Church is an innately conservative rock - they call themselves the 'rock of Peter' - and its resistance to change is, ironically, what has kept it constant throughout the ages.

Gabriel Byrne

Nothing much will change under Biden because his thing is: let's return America to what it was. Well, what America was caused Trump. The Democrats rolled out the red carpet.

Gabriel Byrne

It still makes me angry. The church still controls education in Ireland. And it's an obscenity to tell innocent children they're going to go to hell for taking sixpence out of their mother's purse...[in America] It's regarded as important not to put money into it, because if you put money into it, you start people thinking, and then they start to question the system and that's dangerous...I want to go on that journey with my child trying to expand their vision of the world. I'm not going to leave it to them to take over her brain.

Gabriel Byrne