The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.

There's this wonderful first assistant and he'll be saying, 'Now Harry goes down among the dragons.' You have to hold yourself together. Because if you lose it for a second then you're sunk.

The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.

I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.

People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all.

Chris and Toby are far too sane to be upset any more.

I said 'It can't go on' and he said 'No, it can't.' Honestly, I don't think I could have mattered less to him by then. But by then, nothing mattered to him.

It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.

I do love comedy, and when it's a comedy moment and you can make people laugh, of course it is wonderful.

I fear that I won't work in the theatre again. I'm sad about that. But I won't retire.

I had been feeling a little rum. I didn't think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don't know what the future holds, if anything.

I have many good friends, but I tend to keep to myself anyway. It's odd, doing things and having no one to share them with.

I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen.

I've been playing old parts forever. I play 93 quite often. When you've done it more than once, you take the hint. I think it's a great burden if you're one of those fantastic stars who've always been beautiful; then I think it's hard.

If you're lucky, I think you know what you want to do with your life. I think that's a greater gift that any of the gifts you might have when you do know, if you know what I mean. It must be awful to not know what to do.

Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.

Old people are scary. And I have to face it. I am old and I am scary.

Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.

The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing. I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody. I wouldn't have liked that. Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?

The thing is, often press people ask questions that are so personal that even your nearest and dearest wouldn't ask them.

There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it's stunning, and there is nothing to match that.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness.

When I started acting almost 50 years ago, it wasn't about fame. It was about acting.

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.

There's nothing simpler than avoiding people you don't like. Avoiding one's friends, that's the real test.

Having a biopic made is very flattering.

Disappointment is a sticky one, because no one can steal contentment, joy, gratitude, or peace - we have to give it away.

I was not a successful TV comedy writer.

I think fondly of the rabbit holes I disappeared down when I researched papers for history and English because I couldn't find quite what I was looking for, or because I had to go through so much material to find examples for my thesis.

If you look in the Bible there's no birthdays.

I used to play - when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

When you're bullied in high school, even if it's the smallest amount, or you're actually tortured, I feel like everybody carries that with them. They always think of that one person who treated them badly in high school.

In my Olympic history I don't think I have achieved my potential as an athlete. That's what I want when I look back at my career. I want to be able to say I gave it my best shot.

Terms such as 'microaggression,' describing an inadvertent act of offense, have entered the college lexicon, empowering an atmosphere of prior restraint on speech. And many colleges are also disinviting speakers in fear of offending certain elements of their student communities.

There can be moments in your life where you may feel attracted to someone depending on circumstance, depending on the person of one gender or another, and sometimes where that is less of an influence in your life.

I'll have time to mature and develop, and one day, hopefully, I can bring a ring to wherever I am. LeBron did it.

You're using such different muscles and you rely on physicality in live action, but in animation, you totally throw that out the window. But somehow, they're both as satisfying.

I've come to the conclusion that military style weapons really don't have any place in our society. We ought to reinstate the assault weapons ban that served us well for 10 years from 1994 to 2004.

Kindness eases everything almost as much as money does.

If I want to look half decent, a blow dry is a godsend. I'm crap at doing my own hair.

The worship of youth has diminished - perhaps generally - in recent years.

I would rather be with my kids than anybody else.

I didn't really blossom until my mid teens, and by that time I had to work on my personality to make people like me. I found it easy to make people laugh and I was always pretty popular.

Believing in evolution is believing in the unproved, while believing in Christ is believing in the proven.

I hesitate to get into the gutter with this guy.