Ralph Fiennes Quotes

When I was younger, I talked to the adults around me that I respected most about how they got where they were, and none of them plotted a course they could have predicted, so it seemed a waste of time to plan too long-term. Since then, I've always gone on my instincts.

I'm of the belief that you pursue your interests, you pull it all in, and you sort it out later.

What I learned at that moment on the subway 30 years ago, staring at my blank passport, was this: If you have an impulse to do something, and it's not totally irresponsible, why not do it? It might just be the journey you've always needed.

In 10 years, I don't really know what I'll be, and I like not having any idea. I like the idea of being so passionate about everything I do and the fact that I might wake up tomorrow and say 'I want to be a chef,' and just pour myself into that.

I'm very unpredictable, but at the end of the day, I'm working. Sometimes things change in my life. It's like, 'Hold up - that ain't feel good. That felt good.' And that's how I look at anything I do.

I've never had a plan, I've always done things from instinct.

Don't overplan your life. Joining Google when I was four months pregnant was a bit of a leap, but sometimes you have to do the right thing for you right now.

It's not that you can do this calculated move to try to further your career. You just follow what's in your heart, and later you look back and go, 'I was either really dumb or really smart, I can't believe I did that.'

Lot of people know very early what they want, but I didn't know I wanted acting.

Listen to your gut. Are decisions more expansive or narrowing?

You have to know what you want. And if it seems to take you off the track, don't hold back, because perhaps that is instinctively where you want to be. And if you hold back and try to be always where you have been before, you will go dry.

I just do what feels right. I think the great thing about getting to do what I do is that you can try out being a different person without having to screw up your life to do it.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

I don't actually go out and pursue a route that will fit me best, it's just that something comes to me and I enjoy it and want to be a part of it.

By the time you're 18, 19, you know yourself, and you shouldn't go against your gut feeling, which is a temptation in the first year of university.

I truly don't have any formula for the choices I make.

I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea.

I'm just kind of taking whatever life gives me and hoping that I make the right decision.

If you knew what you wanted to be when you were 6 years old - great! If you have no idea what you want to be, that's OK!

I don't play chess with my life, ya' know.

I've come to realise I work so much better when I'm going by instinct.

I think it just helps to be very aware that fundamentally, there are no adults. Everyone is making it up as they go along. You have to find your own path, picking, choosing, taking and discarding as you see fit.

It's important not to think too much about what you do.

I love flying by the seat of my pants, going at something instinctually.

Sometimes you have to trust your guts and your instinct and improvise a little.