In every character you play, as much as you hate to admit it as an actor, but there's an element of you that you bring to it.

Honestly, because of the way women were treated, I wouldn't want to go back to Puritan times.

I just want that sensation you have in dreams when you fly to be real.

I'm far too outspoken to be a woman in Puritan times.

If you're an English actor, and you're asked to do an episode - especially the Christmas episode - of 'Downton Abbey, ' you can't turn it down. It's like, 'Of course!'

Perhaps the most "spiritual" thing any of us can do is simply to look through our own eyes, see with eyes of wholeness, and act with integrity and kindness.

Life is about finding yourself in the magnificence of life.

I wouldn't hurt a flea. I'd finger a spider though.

I am good at only two things, and those are gardening and painting.

Nobody ever flunked a science museum

Beware the toils of war ... the mesh of the huge dragnet sweeping up the world.

I can be a new Di Stefano, but I can't be a new Pelé. He is the one that goes beyond the limits of logic.

Boys always get the best eyelashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law. And half-breed kids get some kind of extra help there from genetics, too.

Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.

Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage.