As an actor, you never know where the works going to come, so you have to be flexible about it.

People have preconceptions about women of a certain age.

Coming eyeball to eyeball with a hummingbird on my terrace is as exciting to me as any celebrity Ive met as a result of Downton Abbey.

I can do basics, but I'm not a proper cook. I can do a roast. I can stick a chicken in the oven with vegetables.

The first meal my husband ever made me was a chicken curry. I have never tasted anything so delicious in my life.

I get invited to a lot more glamorous parties since Ive been in Downton Abbey, which has made me much more fashion conscious.

I did an O-level in domestic science when I was at school, but on the day of the practical exam, it was a cookery nightmare.

Ive been to the White House and had Hilary Clinton push through the crowd to come and meet me. Chelsea Clinton, too.

I believe anything can happen.

I always admire people who have passion.

Ive not cooked Christmas dinner since 1982.

Life is your biggest Treasure. Enjoy it. If you forget to, it will soon be gone, never to return.

Ask yourself every morning, ‘how can I increase my service today?’

Two principles we should always have ready — that there is nothing good or evil save in the will; and that we are not to lead events, but to follow them.

Oh, you think the darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it. Molded by it.

I chose to enter a profession that is not easy. To be able to say that I am doing what I love for a living - man, it isn't work. I cannot begin to describe how fortunate I am.

You are not competing with anyone else. You are only competing with yourself to do the best with whatever you have received.

If you rest in the silence inside, all those you meet will have their spiritual hearts resuscitated.

Desire can't be sated, because if it is, the longing disappears and then we've failed, because desire is the state we seek.

As American education and intelligence becomes replaced by feelings and emotion, not seeing the forest for the trees has become a major problem.

Nothing shows our weakness more than to be so sharp-sighted at spying other men's faults, and so purblind about our own.