Sir Christopher Lee's Best Quotes

"Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff didn't like the word 'horror'. They, like I, went for the French description: 'the theatre of the fantastique.'"

"There are many vampires in the world today - you only have to think of the film business."

"In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment."

"One should try anything he can in his career, except folkdance and incest."

On his time working in military intelligence during WWII: "When people say to me, you know, were you in this? Were you in that? Did you work in this? Did you work in that? I always used to say 'Can you keep a secret?'. And they would say 'Yes, yes' and I would say 'So can I.'"

"I was once asked what I thought was the most disquieting thing you could see on the screen and I said, 'An open door.'"

"Most British stars flatly refused to have me anywhere near them in a film, because I was easily the tallest man around."

"I think that - apart from the fields of science and medicine - we live in an age of decline. Look at the world. There is decline in morals, ideals, manners, respect, truthfulness: just about everything, in fact."

"I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved."

"To be a legend, you've either got to be dead or excessively old!"

"We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not."

"If I had any deadly secrets, I wouldn't still be alive."

"Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them."

"Somebody once asked me how I found Peter Jackson and I said: 'Well, I parted his hair, and there he was.'"

"What's really important for me is, as an old man, I'm known by my own generation and the next generation know me, too."