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.

Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.

As my mind can conceive of more good, the barriers and blocks dissolve. My life becomes full of little miracles popping up out of the blue.

The real ornament of woman is her character, her purity.

Just make games for yourself and try to have a critical eye to what you do. If you genuinely like the game, there will be other people who like it as well.

I haven't got ambitions. Actually, I'm determined not to die until I get very old. I want to be a great-great-great-grandmother.

Well, we're trying to patch and fix and put a cast on a broken system here. You can call it what you want, but we'll continue to purchase power in a private market.

You hope that your teenage self would like and forgive your 50-year-old self.

Those greedy Hawks with deep peckish pockets circled around the concrete jungle to search for its fresh penurious prey to snack on.

Gods wisdom exceeds infinity.

Many schools desperately need caring professionals like guidance counselors and social workers to ensure students' emotional, social and educational needs are met. But proposals to arm teachers are irresponsible and dangerous. The role of educators is to teach and nurture our children, not to be armed guards.

Happy is the person who cherishes the precious lessons of the past and lives vigorously in the present.

I am confident that I can achieve anything.

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.

Once you start doing only what you've already proven you can do, you're on the road to death.

Black Lives Matter is proving itself to seek only one end - and that is discord, alienation among Americans, rise in hate, and destruction of community bonds. The relative increase in justice afforded black Americans is of little concern, save as a convenient veneer for their anti-democratic mission.

The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be.

Freedom is for honest people. No man who is not himself honest can be free – he is his own trap.

More passengers fly in and out of London than any other city in the world. We are well-connected, we have ample capacity, and we are starting from a position of strength. The problem is that we don't use that capacity well.

Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.

I can play the harmonica with my nose.