I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music, and that film was fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I got terribly lucky in that respect.

Garry Marshall is a joy. I feel so utterly safe in his hands.

I thought it was all a flash in the pan. It wasn't until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it.

I don't think today's younger audience... would even know what 1920s musicals were like.

I adored my birth father and constantly worried that I was being disloyal to him and his schoolteacher roots if I spent too much time performing and enjoying it.

Richard Burton rang me up once and said, Do you know you're my only leading lady I've never slept with? I said, Well, please don't tell everybody, it's the worst image.

I have always wished I could learn to be a potter. I love collecting ceramics; it would be so fulfilling to create something lovely.

I have been called a nun with a switchblade where my privacy is concerned. I think there's a point where one says, that's for family, that's for me.

I've got a good right hook.

I love singing, and I came to absolutely adore it in the later part of my career.

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.

Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it.

On the whole, I think women wear too much and are to fussy. You can't see the person for all the clutter.

All love shifts and changes. I don't know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.

I am very proud to be British. I'm very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well.

I am an optimistic lady.

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.

The thrill of being in front of a camera remains exactly the same.

I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music, and that film was fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I got terribly lucky in that respect.

Sometimes oppurtunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.

I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on.

If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.

I would be a fool to deny my own abilities.

I hate the word wholesome.

Broadway is a tough, tough arena for singing.

All careers go up and down like friendships, like marriages, like anything else, and you can't bat a thousand all the time.

Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways - water in general, water sounds - there's music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.

Behaving like a princess is work. It's not just about looking beautiful or wearing a crown. It's more about how you are inside.

I am told that the first comprehensible word I uttered as a child was 'home.'

I play with my grandchildren. I tend to my garden, which I love. Of course, I love to read, and family is really what it's all about.

I think every young girl at some point in her early life wonders what it's like to be a princess. They like the idea of dressing up and the fun of it.

I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan, because in vaudeville, which is my background, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities.

Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.

All love shifts and changes. I dont know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.

If youre passionate about what you do then go for it wholeheartedly. Be prepared that if anytime you may be surprised by a phenomenal opportunity that may come your way and thats when I say do your homework. Be ready.

If you're tearing around in a panic about something, then it puts everyone else in a panic as well.

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th

Success is terrifying. Like happiness, it is often appreciated in retrospect. It's only later that you place it in perspective. Years from now, I'll look back and say, ˜God, wasn't it wonderful.'

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.