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

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.

I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction, but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation.

Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear-based.

Anticipation of movement, through muscular innervation and memory, by its retention of nerve impulse images, extend the present to the limit of a second or so.

But if we learn to think of it as anticipation, as learning, as growing, if we think of the time we spend waiting for the big things of life as an opportunity instead of a passing of time, what wonderful horizons open out!

Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels.

Hollywood... a city I was to come back to time and again, in sickness and in health, in success and in failure, with anticipation and with dread.

He who matures early lives in anticipation.

The racing driver's mind has to have the ability to have amazing anticipation, coordination, and reflex. Because of the speed the car goes.

Conscience in most men, is but the anticipation of the opinions of others.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.

It varies from song to song, although Buck Owens and I recently collaborated on writing a duet together and am looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to recording that track for the new studio album.

There is no more respected or influential forum in the field of journalism than the New York Times. I look forward, with great anticipation, to contributing to its op-ed page.

A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.

I have good anticipation, and good reaction to the the ball because I've played so many matches in my life.

An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but precursors of the things which we are capable of performing.

As Daddy said, life is 95 percent anticipation.

Conscience is, in most men, an anticipation of the opinions of others.

If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.

So not only do we need to deal with threats as they emerge, we have to be thinking in anticipation of future threats, and the things we do have to be things that enable the system to continue to work.