If you're at an award ceremony, you're against your mates.

I worked in rep for six years, then I came to London and to the National Theatre. What's better than that?

You can only do your best. That's all you can do. And if it isn't good enough, it isn't good enough.

Agents and producers have to get you into a box to accommodate their limited imaginations.

Look at Judi Dench, who's brilliant in whatever bloody job she does.

I've always liked new writing.

If you're at an award ceremony, you're against your mates.

A lot of me is very up, and you have to have light and shade. They are both important and you have to be able to balance them. You have to admit that sadness is part of you and that it enriches you. I use it in my work.

At the time of Woodstock, I was just 13, but I used to see these exotic hippy creatures and I did look on with envy. How could you not? In an ideal world, I would have loved to have been a hippy - but I might have been a bit strait-laced. It was my fantasy.

Chaotic people often have chaotic lives, and I think they create that. But if you try and have an inner peace and a positive attitude, I think you attract that.

Children should always be brave and do something about bullying. It's not okay to stand by and let it happen. Bullies thrive off secrecy. Children should tell someone if they see someone being bullied.

Fortunately my career has never been about how I look, it's about how I can be.

Having a child makes you strong and gives you chutzpah. It relaxed my attitude to the job; my center of focus shifted, which I think is very helpful, because even if you're not a very indulgent actor you spend a lot of time thinking about yourself. I don't think that is particularly healthy.

Her death has had a huge effect on me. It felt like a big hole appeared on my left side - apparently your left side is your mother - which I thought could never be filled. Now I think what you have to do is fill it with yourself because your mother is part of you. I'm easing into that space, using it and being comforted by it.

I adore Bette Davis and Vivien Leigh, but more because they were good actresses. That's what makes me interested in them, that they didn't present themselves as idols; they were just doing their jobs.

I don't feel the need for religion. But I went on a yoga retreat last year and I do believe slightly in the karma thing and just being good and true unto yourself. And I slightly believe that you can attract good and bad to you.

I never wanted for anything. We went to Ireland for holidays every year. I was 14 when we first went to Italy. My mum was determined I was going to go to a good school. My mum was an absolute grafter. A real grafter. I got my work ethic from her.

I think the first 10 years of my daughter's life were my mother's happiest, because she could finally have carefree time with a kid.

I was brought up a Catholic, so I take no pleasure in guilt.

Looking back, there is nothing wrong with that peace, love and equality that the hippies espoused. In many ways, we have regressed because they were into organic food, back to nature, make love not war, be good to all men, share and share alike - which is what many are talking about now.

The one good thing is that I get a lot more good scripts coming through my letterbox. 'Vera Drake' raised my profile in one way, and then 'Harry Potter' in another.

To me, it's really not about how I look - it's about who I can be. It is my job to bring the character to life and my duty to fit into the jigsaw in that story.

We all must support the arts, as it is our culture. It makes us better people. It makes us happy; it gives us empathy and shows us how to live. It is so important.

We're all unique as actors. To yourself, you are unique. You have to think, 'I'm me. I'm not going to bunch myself with other people.' Agents and producers have to get you into a box to accommodate their limited imaginations.

We're in a world that celebrates things: success, beauty, money. And I reckon that's really about 4 per cent of the world. The rest of us are just getting on with it.

You could say I'm a character actress. Or maybe a character actress who does peculiar, interesting lead roles.

You could say I'm a character actress. Or maybe a character actress who does peculiar, interesting lead roles. Does that make sense?

You can only do your best. Thats all you can do. And if it isnt good enough it isnt good enough.

There was no religious ceremony connected with marriage among us, while on the other hand the relation between man and woman was regarded as in itself mysterious and holy.

The ceremony took six minutes. The marriage lasted about the same amount of time though we didn't get a divorce for almost a year.

On the fortieth day after his death, we held the ceremony, and I performed for the very first time.

Ceremony leads her bigots forth, prepared to fight for shadows of no worth. While truths, on which eternal things depend, can hardly find a single friend.

I was quite moved to see this huge crowd which attended the ceremony in the middle of the town.

Mary, my little girl, was confirmed in a Buddhist temple. She saw the Life write up on Buddhism, with pictures of the ceremony, and she said she wanted to be confirmed there because she only liked Jesus as a kid. She was a little disappointed in him when he grew up.

Winning the Outstanding Contribution award is great, because you know you have won in advance. Previously, I have been really nervous during the ceremony because you have no idea if you are going to get called up on stage. This time I could relax and enjoy myself.

Before I took the veil, I was ornamented for the ceremony, and was clothed in a rich dress belonging to the Convent, which was used on such occasions; and placed not far from the altar in the chapel, in the view of a number of spectators who had assembled, perhaps about forty.

The notion of religious liberty is that you cannot be forced to participate in a religious ceremony that's not of your choosing simply because you're out-voted.

The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball. This is ceremony.

A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success.

Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally, divest myself.

This ceremony and the intellectual aura associated with the Nobel Prizes have grown from the wisdom of a practical chemist who wrote a remarkable will.

Haiti itself was also photographed, some of the streets, some of the mountains, rivers, streams, etc. were photographed before talking with me about how I felt about Haiti. Then the camera went to our voodoo temple and saw a serious ceremony, a real ceremony.

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

Even though I disagree with many of the changes, when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day, when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony, they are still fine privates; outstanding, well motivated privates.

This is going to sound completely absurd, but I do sometimes feel like the enjoyment of an awards ceremony or the pride in the finished article hasn't ever surpassed the joy of doing the work, of making it. The doing it is really the bit I'm there for.

Every ceremony or rite has a value if it is performed without alteration. A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. Anyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books.

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: 'We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.'

Hearing Mass is the ceremony I most favor during my travels. Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

Not every religion has to have St. Augustine's attitude to sex. Why even in our culture marriages are celebrated in a church, everyone present knows what is going to happen that night, but that doesn't prevent it being a religious ceremony.