Paul Bettany Quotes

I grew up in a bit of a vacuum. And as a kid, you see 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and you're like, 'Oh, it's a cartoon.' There's mixed media. It's funny, and there's stop-motion. But as an adult, you figure it out, how the entire underpinnings of their comedy was poking fun at the rank and file of the British aristocracy and the monarchy.

Marie Antoinette was funny, I'm sure she was just misinterpreted. You know the 'Let them eat cake' line. She seems like she was kind of funny, like a Chelsea Handler or Kathy Griffin type.

I am very pro-royal. Britain without them would be a sadder place.

The Royal family to me are not England, and they are not the flag.

The Royal Family are not like you and me. They live in houses so big that you can walk round all day and never need to meet your spouse. The Queen and Prince Philip have never shared a bedroom in their lives. They don't even have breakfast together.

I like all the families in the U.K. But what I like about the idea of the royal family is... they seem like they're well educated and there's something admirable about them. And the Queen... she reminds me of my grandma.

Queen Victoria, one of our more frumpy Queen's. They're all frumpy aren't they? Because it's a bad idea when cousin's marry.

I think it would be nice to be a prince.

I'd like to be Queen Elizabeth.

It would be good to see what the Queen gets up to at Buckingham Palace. I bet she spends her whole time watching 'Coronation Street.'

In the museum, next to the dinosaurs---that’s where the monarchy should go.

A family on the throne is an interesting idea.... It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.

Soon there will only be five kings left, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and the King of England.

Members of my family don’t get it…. The further away you’re removed from this chair [the King’s throne] the more of a prince or princess you are … the more you believe in absolute monarchy.

I think you can't have the monarchy without the coronation. I think you would have to get rid of the whole kit and caboodle.

Commerce and politics do not go with royalty, full stop.

With a good education and a solid childhood, Marie-Antoinette might have become one of the most admired women in Europe. As it was, the empress paid no attention to her youngest daughter until an accident of nuptial politics made the girl a candidate to marry the French dauphin.

There's no more private family than the royal family. People who can really only be themselves with each other. The rest of us just spend all our time fascinated by them.

I insist to this day that if you read the screenplay to 'The Queen,' it leaves you in no doubt that we considered her an isolated, out-of-touch, cold, emotionally inaccessible, overprivileged, deluded woman, heading an institution that should immediately be dismantled in any free and fair society.

I never liked the idea of the 'Royal Family' film. I always thought it was a rotten idea.

I think everyone in the United States has such admiration for the British royal family, and with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, there's a whole new interest in the younger generation.

Growing up in England, of course you do absorb certain ways the royals wave their hands and carry themselves.

Many Americans remain very interested in royal goings-on in general, and not just because of their soap-opera appeal. To a greater degree than any other polity, Britain functions as Americans' defining 'other.'

I grew up in a family that felt indifferent towards the royal family.

I have so much respect for the Queen and for Charles, and what the family represents. And yet there's still a conflict about whether we can abolish the class system while also having a Royal family.