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.

When you are kind to others, it not only changes you, it changes the world.

It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.

My pop did a little time.

If you're running a business for the long term, the last thing you should be doing is borrowing money to buy back stock.

That's one of the challenges of investing in China, is the lack of clarity with respect to tax positions.

The day has eyes; the night has ears.

If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet.

You never know what's going to happen next onstage.

I was at Stanford University up in the West Coast Bay Area, so the biggest song of my freshman year was 'I Got 5 on It' by Luniz, and the 'I Got 5 on It' remix was the joint that everybody was jamming constantly. And then it was also at that particular time that I became a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan.

If somebody had said to me in June or July of 1987, 'We'd like you to become chairman of the Federal Reserve, but you're never allowed to discuss any economics after you leave,' I'd have said, 'Forget it.' What do they want me to do? Become an anthropologist?'

Dad was the pitching coach, while Mom was the emotional supporter. Her unconditional love was great, and she wanted what was best for me. It was more about what she did than what she said, and she made sure I was the best I could be.

Money is power and power gives you choice.

Creating something is all about problem-solving.

Sometimes I wish that I could go into a time machine right now and just look at my self and say, 'Calm down. Things are gonna be fine. Things are gonna be all great. Just relax.'

How can you prevent an attack by returning foreign fighters if you are not cognizant of their names and links to ISIS?

I like to read and dream and create music that is based on the imagery of text. If you have the combination of a great book and a great filmmaker, what could be better for the composer?

I feel prematurely old. I'm actually having this major belated quarter-life crisis. I'm turning 30 in a couple of weeks. I've been thinking a lot about mortality. A lot about what I'm going to do with my life and how to enjoy it. One of the things I'm going to work on is being more spontaneous, letting go, embracing the beauty of come-what-may.

A woman experiencing an unplanned pregnancy also deserves to experience unplanned joy.

Every time you make a guess of what a judge is going to do... you're wrong, so I try to stay away from that.

There are some very significant changes in the way the fluids are distributed in our body, the way our heart functions initially, and as well as our bone and muscle.