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.

We have this wonderful language and we don't appreciate it. That's old-fashioned me, but when I went to school, everyone had elocution lessons, not to sound posh but so you could be understood.

Shyness is just egotism 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.

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.

We always had chocolates and my mother was careful to make sure they were unwrapped in advance so the paper wouldn't rustle in the middle of a performance.

Older people, who just happen to have been around longer, may not be cleverer than the young, but they have seen more.

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.

So often actors only mix with actors, which is quite incestuous, and doesn't give them the insight into how other people work.

With a play, you do it and it's gone. Films always date. Television drama always dates. Television comedy, for some reason, seems to go on.

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.

A hero lives forever for the ones who carry on.

The end of all good music is to affect the soul.

Heroism does not require spiritual maturity.

Teams want me to do something stupid. You want to get to the point where nothing affects you, where you control them.

Let's pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

But if applause throws off your timing, then you're not the kind of comedian I would like to see. All you have to do is stand there and take it.

Simple practices like conscious breathing and smiling are very important. They can change our civilization.

I think therapy is a rather misguided notion of capitalist societies whereby the self-indulgent examination of one's life supersedes the actual living of said life.

Spirituality is like a bird: If you hold it too closely, it chokes, And if you hold it too loosely, it escapes.