It made me the hero of the whole of France. To head-butt a cop is the dream of every Frenchman.

My philosophy is that when I go out of my room, I`m prepared to love everybody I meet, unless they`re bad.

I`ve stopped (playing bridge) all together. I decided I didn`t want to be a slave to any passion any more except for my work. I had too many passions, bridge, horses, gambling. I want to live a different kind of life, be with my family more because I didn`t give them enough time. - Interview with Diana Saenger, 2006.

I love to be with my son and my grandchildren, like normal people. I have no particular idea of what I represent to other people. It`s very mysterious to me. I don`t understand it.

I`m very wary about giving advice. I think it`s very dangerous to give advice to people, except if you know them very well.

The reason it has relevance is because I, as a popular Arab personality - the Arab people like me and respect me - thought it was time for me to make an ever so tiny statement about what I thought about this whole thing.

I want to live every moment totally and intensely. Even when I`m giving an interview or talking to people, that`s all that I`m thinking about.

This character in the film, these things that he says which sound like advice and wise things, they are very common for Orientals. It`s all the tradition.

This is one of the factors that also made me very much want to make this film, apart from the fact that I loved it. If the boy hadn`t been Jewish and the man hadn`t been Muslim, it wouldn`t have made any difference to the film. I don`t think it`s relevant, really.

Women know when they`ve got the menopause but men don`t quite know. They know it afterwards.

I don`t know what sex appeal is. I don`t think you can have sex appeal knowingly. The people who seduce me personally are the people who seem not to know they`re seductive, and not to know they have sex appeal.

I can`t say I gave up totally my passion for women but almost.

I`d rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie.

He read his mind. He`s a strange sort of man, isn`t he? It`s not just the advice and the wisdom that he has.

Aggressive feminists scare me.

I don`t think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

They didn`t accept me theory - not a theory, but just a thought I had about this character. I noticed that this man only exists when the boy comes into the grocery.

[on Peter O`Toole] The very prototype of the ham.

I didn`t want to be a slave to any passion anymore. I gave up card playing altogether, even bridge and gambling - more or less. It took me a few years to get out of it.

I had too many big passions in life and it gets in the way of work. You can`t concentrate properly on the one thing.

I definitely want to do more theatre now. Or, two weeks in a film for a remarkable amount of money.

I see only defects because I`m not following the scene as it were. I`m not following the other person. It`s like the best thing to clarify this is the theater.

This is one of the factors that also made me very much want to make this film, apart from the fact that I loved it. If the boy hadn`t been Jewish and the man hadn`t been Muslim, it wouldn`t have made any difference to the film.

There are lots of wonderful old Italian actors. You don`t need to take an Egyptian to play an Italian actor.

I don`t know what women are attracted to. I can`t tell, but certainly I have no notion of having sex appeal or being seductive in any way.

Working gets in the way of living.