Rupert Penry-Jones Quotes

A lot of people have been hyped up to be great but just disappeared. I promised myself I wouldn't be one of them.

As for the reasons behind my retirement, they mostly center around simple fatigue and a fear that if I continue for many more years my work will begin to suffer, or at the very least ease into the graveyard of mediocre cartoons.

There are a lot of people who would laugh at the idea of me being a good singer.

Success is so fleeting; even if you get a good book deal, or your book is a huge success, there's always the fear: 'What about the next one?'

I don't think you retire from movies; movies retire you.

As much as I love the Western genre, I figured if I kept doing those, I'd eventually run out of steam on that, and that would've been the end of it.

Inevitably any series that goes on too long will reach a point where it starts struggling for ideas, so I've always been really aware of getting out while the going's good.

There are a lot of good actors who work forever and never make one good thing.

Most famous stage actors tactfully fade away.

I guess, as a conductor, one goes in and out of fashion. Your career starts with a bang, everyone thinks you're wonderful, and then with middle age, something happens and you go into the wilderness.

When you know part of the industry thinks of you as a one-hit wonder, that's painful.

There's nothing worse than Hollywood when you're on the way down. It has a way of telling you, 'Mamie, get out. You've had it.'

I really empathise with some of my peers who had success in the early years; then it dries up, and so there's no reason to get up in the morning.

I would like 'Frost' to go on forever, but you don't want people in the press hammering you, saying you've outstayed your welcome or that it's not believable anymore.

I've seen too many people who have been artists for a long time, on that cycle of record-promote-tour, and you look up and 10 years of your life is gone. I didn't want that to happen to me.

I'm not the entertainer anymore.

Success can be destructive to the creative process. I say it all the time: success is as dangerous as total failure.

It's dangerous not to tour, because people assume you've faded away, or have no interest.

Which is worse - being a has-been or being the guy interviewing a has-been?

Emile Saint-Blague had been a lively, versatile painter in his youth, but he had abused his energy by painting too many pictures; so that in what might have been the ripe period of his art he had nothing left but ideas. A man who has nothing left but ideas may be of great service to his friends, but he is of no use at all to himself. Emile was certainly an inspiration to his friends.

I quit comics because I got completely sick of it. I was drawing comics all the time and didn't have the time or energy to do anything else. That got to me in the end. I never made enough money from comics to be able to take a break and do something else. Now I just can't stand comics. . . . I wish my work would be recognized by a larger crowd of people as more art than be stuck with the cartoonist label for the rest of my life.

They say I'm old news. Well who the new star? Cause if I'm goin anywhere it's probably too far.

I want to build a positive image that will last my career.

If you are a star in Hollywood then you are always a star in your eyes, but not always in the eyes of new directors for whom your great performances are always fading into the past.