British Quotes

In this great age of communication, there a lot of people you can't actually understand. I know everyone tweets, and twits and texts and all that, but actually we've all got voices, and it is awfully nice to hear them and if you can understand what people are saying.

In my book, all manners are is thinking of somebody else.

I'm sure that is a reason why young people occasionally bash up old people - because the ages don't mix any more.

I'm not against accents - my husband's from Lancashire and has a rural Lancs accent. We've just got back from Scotland yesterday, and I love that Highland burr.

I'm a realist.

I'm a bit of a Scotophile. I have a house on the Black Isle, so I'm in Scotland quite a lot and think Edinburgh is just the most beautiful city.

I think it is very sad that 'sitcom' has become a pejorative term.

I think I'm a better actress for having friends and interests outside the theatre. I wouldn't want to live my life surrounded by other actors all the time.

I love touring, I really do.

I don't think actors ever retire, they just stop being asked to work.

I don't feel 'vibes' when I enter a building - don't feel the previous owners looking down on me. But I do know when a place feels friendly.

I don't believe in public humiliation. It went out with the stocks.

I always used to say when I was on television that I prefer to be on stage and when on stage I prefer to do television. Typical human condition.

Everyone wants instant everything, and they want instant success, but I always think you should treat things in the arts like a garden, and let them grow.

A lot of people have it - that fantasy of being lord or lady of the manor, either in the present or at some time in history.

Shyness is just egoism out of its depth.

I plant a lot of trees. I am a great believer in planting things for future generations. I loathe the now culture where you just live for today.

You want to enjoy making a movie - it's a wonderful, collaborative thing.

When I started my filmmaking journey 17 years ago, I honestly didn't know what a documentary film was.

So I've tried to be this very eccentric character, and that works very well if you want to be a painter which I did once upon a time, if you want to be a musician which I did once upon a time. But if you want to make movies and you want to make challenging movies, you've got to be the sanest person

No, I'm a very normal and orthodox person that goes out of their way to present eccentricity. It's not that I do that so much now but I've been doing it for so many years that it's become routine now.

I've come up through art school, through painting, through graphic design, through advertising, through TV commercials and music video. I've designed books, built billboards, matchbooks, corporate identities. I continuously paint, I've done conceptual art pictures.

I'm trying to make as many films as I can.

I'd love to have done 'John Carter.' I'd love to work for the Disney Corporation.

I just spend my life studying the manufacture of sound and picture and my education, if you like, has come from what I've chosen to make sounds and pictures on.

Everything that happens is meant to be. It's meant to happen like that. But sometimes you don't know at the time that it's meant to be disaster.

'Breaking Bad' is the best, the greatest, the most amazing thing I have ever watched on television.

As a documentary filmmaker, I'm very respectful, and my interview style is not intrusive. I don't really have an agenda. I just go in there, I mumble something or other, I wait for them to speak, and I wait for them to stop.

You know, I've never thought of myself as a comedian.

We will definitely not burn the Koran, no. Not today, not ever.