I felt quite a responsibility when I played Elizabeth I but nobody here remembers her! And then I felt a responsibility when I played Queen Victoria but not many people remember her.

Most things don't work out as expected, but what happens instead often turns out to be the good stuff.

I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it.

I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination.

My husband was actually very keen that I would become a Bond girl.

I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not employed. That's why, you know, I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not going to be cast again.

We get up in the morning. We do our best. Nothing else matters.

The only real failure is the failure to try.

The more I do, the more frightened I get. But that is essential. Otherwise why would I go on doing it?

There's nothing good about being my age.

I get sillier as I get older, so I don't know what wisdom means. I can only pass on something that I've been acquainted with and let whomever it is pick the bones out of it

I wondered why I hadn't realized before that art was hard because you had to recreate not merely the scene but the way it soared into your soul and changed you.

Love is the sweetest melody of the soul and anything can be catalyst for that.

In search of myself, I have created myself.

This planet can be a paradise in the 22nd century.

I cry for those not yet dead.

I never starved. And you know, whatever talent I have, I've relied on that, versus image or star.

Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.

I'd rather die like Christ than live unholy.

If someone had told me, don't say anything about Lillian Hellman because she'll sue you, it wouldn't have stopped me. It might have spurred me on.

Prayer is the instrument of miracles.