Memorable quotes by Johnny.

• “If you catch me saying ‘I am a serious actor,’ I beg you to slap me.”

• “People say I make strange choices, but they’re not strange for me. My sickness is that I’m fascinated by human behavior, by what’s underneath the surface, by the worlds inside people.”

• “I’ve tried directing once before, and it was a very big learning experience. I definitely wouldn’t do it again – especially if I had to be in it too!”

• (On fatherhood) “I used to go through the world, thinking I was seeing things clearly, but I was kind of stumbling and viewing events through a haze, like a gauze or something. Then the instant my baby was born, I looked at her and immediately, instantly, everything came into a sharp focus. I looked at her, this pure little angel, that I was just meeting for the first time, and I realized I had known her for 10,000 years. There willl never be anyone that will know me better, that will understand me just by a look. I know I will never be closer to another human being. She hasn’t changed my life, she’s given me my life, in the sense that everything now has a reason. I used to think I was happy, that there were things in my life that would make me smile, but the biggest difference is that now I can feel my smile, it’s all connected.”

• (On his kids) “They saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which made me very nervous. I was scared they’d come home and say: “Hey, Dad, better luck next time!” But they came home quoting it, which was nice.”

• “When I was a kid, I had a lot of dreams. I wanted to be everything from Evel Knievel to the first white Harlem Globetrotter, and I’m still trying! Then I wanted to play guitar, and now I’m here, doing this – acting.”

• (On his relationship with partner Vanessa Paradis) “We basically somehow have a miraculous understanding of one another and we don’t ever talk about the business. We don’t talk about her work or my work. So our life in that sense is very, very simple. We are great, great friends and we’re in love.”

• “For me, ambition has become a dirty word. I prefer hunger. To be hungry-great. To have hopes, dreams-great.”

• (On his plans to retire at age 50) “I feel my sex appeal will last no longer.”

• “There was a woman at some restaurant who asked what her parents did, and Lilly Rose said, ‘Well, my mommy’s a singer.’ And the lady said, ‘Oh, yeah? What does your daddy do?’ and she said, ‘My daddy’s a pirate.’”

• “Even in the deepest, darkest scenes I’m always the one who is looking to find the humour and extract it.”

• “I was in LA making Blow at the same time my girl was doing her record in Los Angeles.”

• “I love our house in the country. I can walk to the village and have a coffee and no-one pays any notice. I’m just another dad with his daughter.”

• (On director Tim Burton) “He can ask me everything. If he wants me to have sex with an aardvark in one of his next movies, then I will do that.”

• “I can remember when I finished Edward Scissorhands. looking in the mirror as the girl was doing my make-up for the last time and thinking — it was like the 90th or 89th day of shooting — and I remember looking and going, ‘Wow, this is it. I’m saying goodbye to this guy, I’m saying goodbye to Edward Scissorhands. You know, it was kind of sad. But in fact, I think they’re all still somehow in there.”

• (On his daughter, Lily-Rose) “I see this amazing, beautiful, pure angel-thing wake up in the morning, and nothing can touch that. She is the only reason to wake up in the morning, the only reason to take a breath. Everything else is checkers.”

• “Sure, I find it touching, honestly, but awards are not as important to me as when I meet a 10-year-old kid who says, ‘I love Captain Jack Sparrow.’ That’s real magic for me.”

• (Talking on the Sleepy Hollow set about being dragged behind a carriage) “I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. I was just afraid that the horses may relieve themselves on the journey.”

• “I’d start to do these voices, start playing characters as these dolls and she’d just look up and go, ‘Dad, could you just do your own voice, OK? You don’t have to play it like that’.”

• “Even if I tried to avoid the certain emotions that live inside me, I wouldn’t be able to do so. I have a family now, and I’ll do anything I can to make life good. So if all this should evaporate, and I had to go back to pumping gas, I’d do it. That would be OK, as long as my family was there for me, and I for them.”

• “There are four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.”

• “The term ‘serious actor’ is kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it? Like ‘Republican party’ or ‘airplane food.’”

• “May the wind always be on your back and the sun upon your face and may the winds of destiny carry you aloft to dance with the stars.”