I'm lucky that most of the time I'm on location in amazing places. Most of the time, I don't need holidays, I just stop working.

I took some classes in sign language when I was in my early teens because I was told that I would be completely deaf very early. But I never really wanted to learn.

One of the reasons I wanted to teach deaf children was because it made me very sad that they spoke so clumsily and that they moved with less grace that I knew was possible of deaf people.

Nothing is going to improve my hearing. I've only got to prevent it from getting worse.

I can not remember even thinking that I was deaf when I was dancing.

But as far as my work is concerned, I see no impediment, and various advantages, to being deaf.

I genuinely enjoy talking one-to-one. I have no shyness about that.

I think the deafness affects me more than I realise I think it makes me more tired. I loathe parties. I attend, smile and leave.

I'm the one by the backdoor - I am not the one in the middle of the party.

When I got into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, a doctor told me to give up the course as I'd be totally deaf within a couple of years. But I refused to give in.

People keep asking me if I'll marry again. It's as if after you've had one car crash you want another.

You must remember, the so-called Jihadis who are in reality, mentally unstable individuals run by Quranic fundamentalists, do not represent the whole Muslim population of the world.

I think security is a big issue for people.

Circumstances do not determine state of being; state of being determines circumstances.

In reality there is nothing to fear in the present. Fear is projected onto the present by memory.

Real speech can only come from complete silence. Incomplete silence is as fussy as deliberate conversation.

You have to smile after making trouble. This way you get in less trouble.

I think the monarchy today is. . . mildly interesting and largely harmless. I can't find I can get very heated about it. In the next couple of generations, it is bound to go.

Don't ever go to war. Even if you win, the battle is never over inside you.

As few subjects are more interesting to society, so few have been more frequently written upon than the education of youth.

Women are complicated...not because women are crazy, but because people are crazy, and women happen to be people.