Ive not cooked Christmas dinner since 1982.

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.

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

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots.

Life is one long struggle between conclusions based on abstract ways of conceiving cases and opposite conclusions prompted by our instinctive perception of them.

Americans never quit.

Much effort, much prosperity.

I'm the chief science officer of a foundation that works on the application of regenerative medicine to the problem of aging.

I am sure that no traveler seeing things through author spectacles can see them as they are.

Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.

Even before I became a recording artist, I did other things in music. I was a teacher, I did studio work, and I was an arranger and a producer.

It's a sin to be rich, but it's a low down shame to be poor.

A resolution to attend theatres or operas is an absolute disqualification for Holy Orders.