I do still get the odd fan letter about The Good Life, clearly written by somebody aged 18, who says: Will you send a photograph? And I think: Maybe it's kinder not to. I'm deeply into my 50s now.

Success breeds success, and failure leads to a sort of fallow period.

I'm sure people in the business have said: She's too old for that part. I don't hear about it because your agent protects you from those negative things.

As we have more women in power, so the plays and the TV dramas are reflecting what's happening.

The girl-next-door image is a sort of joke; for years, I couldn't get any roles other than as somebody dark.

When I was much younger, I sometimes felt rejected by feminists because of an image that I sold because it paid the bills. Any fool could tell my hair is dyed.

Every woman feels she is too old and has missed the boat.

I think you have to relax about aging. What else can you do?

I hope to start enjoying flirting again when I'm 70, like my mother did.

I do still get the odd fan letter about The Good Life, clearly written by somebody aged 18, who says: Will you send a photograph? And I think: Maybe it's kinder not to. I'm deeply into my 50s now.

When I was little I always thought I was marked out, special, on the verge of something momentous. I used to tingle with anticipation.

For me, compatibility is a sense of humour, being able to laugh together; that is very important.

So many roles for women demand that you make the audience fall in love with you or sympathise with you.

A lot of my close friends are nothing to do with show business. But the people I've had relationships with, invariably, I've worked with. I think that's probably because I grew up in a family where we all worked together, so it's something I feel comfortable with.

I did try fillers once. Don't ever have fillers because when your cheekbones are high, it's chipmunk time.

I don't think I've ever not had a dark side. But one of the wonderful reasons why you go into this business is that half your life you live in a fantasy, which is somebody else's life. It's actually a great release because you're not having to deal with the itty-bitty bits of life.

I haven't done fillers or Botox for ages. There comes a point where you have to match bits of you with the other bits; otherwise, you get a terribly random situation.

I love a mask. It's why I've got a thing about good writing. When you're acting, you're going into someone else's work. You're behind his words; it's not you.

I love gentle, gorgeous classical music such as Mozart.

I really do believe there are things passed down. Behaviour, not just DNA. Psychological make-up. You can see it in dogs. If you want to breed a calm dog, don't get two fighters.

I think in the acting world you either manage that transition to older roles, or you stick with what you've always done and then discover nobody can bear you doing it as an older person.

I think very few people do find a relationship where, every moment of every day, everything they do comes together. That's why, in a nutshell, everyone loved Barbara in 'The Good Life.' She was the perfect partner. It was a formula. She wasn't glamorous. She wasn't clever. But she was a good partner. That's too easy, too perfect.

I wouldn't trade anything for family time. To me, it is more important than everything else, and I have a very deep-rooted belief in it, which is influenced by my Jewish faith. That's a very great source of who I am and what I believe in.

It's difficult to say what attracts one person to another. It's always a combination, isn't it? I've always found people interesting because of the way they think, and a sense of humour is irresistible.

It's nice not to have lines when you frown, especially on TV. I don't know why people make such a fuss about it. No one is interested if a woman has her teeth capped or her hair dyed.

The gym is where I get my chill-out time. I try to go six days a week, but when I'm working, that goes down to about three.

We take ourselves so seriously moment by moment, but India shows you a sense of eternity. You're one little ant on a hill. You're part of life, but you're not the whole thing.

I don't think, until you've actually lost somebody you really love, that you can go through that door that allows you to be grown-up.

Roosevelt's magic lay in one facet of his personality: He knew how to take the risk. No other man in public life I knew could so readily take the challenge of the new.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

Work is the meat of life, pleasure the dessert.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

You have choices to make about what you do with the rest of your life.

From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable hypothesis that the beginnings of the mental life date from as far back as the beginnings of life at large.

I want to have babies one day but not right now. When I do it I want to do it really well. I want it to be my best project in life.

Any judge who allows an adulterer with a live-in girlfriend to terminate the life of his wife should be impeached.

I can assure you, public service is a stimulating, proud and lively enterprise. It is not just a way of life, it is a way to live fully.

The work which is manipulated looks a little boring to me. I think life is pretty strange anyway. It is wooo, wooo, wooo!

With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.

This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

Sometimes life's so much cooler when you just don't know any better and all the painful lessons have not hammered your head open yet.

My life is so full of surprises, nothing surprises me any more.

I love children and I love men, but I can't commit to either for the rest of my life.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

Yes, I am Algerian of Moroccan origin through my parents, but all my life is Algeria. I was born there.