Zitat des Tages von Maggie Smith:
I know there is something out there and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad.
I think lots of actors are very nervous and shy. I know lots of them who are, and some who aren't of course.
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.
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.
I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.
When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get 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 like being outside and working with the elements. The elemental aspects of it. The physicality of it.
I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.
Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.
My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.
The last couple of years have been a write-off, though I'm beginning to feel like a person now. My energy is coming back.
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?
There's a difference between solitude and loneliness.
I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.
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.
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.
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.
People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all.
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.
People think of you differently if you've been in their homes. They think they own you because they watched you while they were eating dinner, or they can turn you up or down, or even freeze you.
The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.
I know there is something out there, and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad. But I'm not like Shirley MacLaine, who probably believes we were past lovers in another life.
It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see. I can only hope that's correct, because there's an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others.
