An actor's job is about putting across the author's intention; I don't think of myself on the same level as a creator.

It makes me upset, if not angry, when people assume that there can be no morality without a religious framework. If there's a moral framework without all that religious stuff, it's more valuable.

I swim more or less every day.

I try to be classic without being mumsy.

I've never particularly liked the idea of looking back; I'd rather look forward

I look at myself objectively and in a way I see myself as a commodity. Your name becomes somehow outside yourself. Now, when I'm at home being Mrs. Scarfe, that's when I'm most myself.

I know some actresses who used to be older than me who are now younger than me - I don't know how they do it.

I think one wants lots of different lives.

I think all good writing is a struggle. To write as well as you feel you can has to be a struggle, almost by definition, because you could always improve.

We get a lot of overseas people wanting to order cakes.

Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.

Great books help you understand and they help you feel understood.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive

How can people trust the harvest, unless they see it sown?

Take the job or the project that scares you a little. It's the one with the most to teach you.

You always have to go for bigger and better things.

There is always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists.

I used to work, part time, in a deli, in those days when your parents made you work just so you should know what work was like. And you'd make 4, 5, 6, ten dollars.

The swim at Deception Island was by far the hardest swim I've ever done. Antarctica is a very unforgiving environment. If you don't train properly, you'll die.

Doubt always hovers nearby, but I take photographs the way a musician hums. Looking is like breathing. So when luck turns my way and offers me a good picture, joy is surely nigh.

As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.