“Any privacy in public is a hard thing to negotiate.”

I’ll always do ‘Sherlock’ – it’s something I’m not going to give up on.

We have a lot more unlikely heroes now. It’s not just the guy with guns—it’s the guy with brains.

There are moments when, like all of us, you get a bit self-conscious and you’d rather not be living any of your day in public. Those are the awkward times, but you’ve got to have fun with it.

Sherlock being the most prevalent, and they’ve been really good fun.

I was never geeky about anything.

Sometimes being away, on location, I feel like I’m away for much of my own life. I want to be better at staying connected.

Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you’re Royalty.

This is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven’t really experienced any of that. Everyone’s been really happy for me, which is really, really great.

Even the cerebral characters I play seem to have physical quirks. They’re all “physically inhabited,” for lack off a better expression. For instance, Sherlock Holmes has very particular physical gestures which are drawn out in such detail.

I like to think that we’re revolving on this planet and revolving through the galaxy. I love having context that’s so much bigger than I can fathom. It’s fantastic to realise how insignificant you are.

I understand from those who adore him, he [Julian Assange] has a great sense of humor which rarely gets an airing because he’s dealing with such serious issues.

My mum and dad had worked incredibly hard to afford me an education.

[on BBC’s Sherlock] It’s a rare challenge, both for the audience and an actor, to take part in something with this level of intelligence and wit. You have to really enjoy it. It’s a form of mental and physical gymnastics.

[ Stephen Strange] is less strange than other characters I’ve played. He’s lost the power to love, which doesn’t make him a nasty person. I just think he’s closed-off.

Because reading is one of the joys of life, and once you begin, you can’t stop, and you’ve got so many stories to look forward to.

It’s always important to have the blessing.

You can beat the drum so hard that people stop listening. I wanted to use my voice wisely and not expend it wastefully.

Your separation from God is the hardest work you will ever do.

Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.

I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Having children has made me incredibly efficient. It’s hard to leave them in the mornings, but I’m extremely productive during the day, knowing I want to be fully focused on them when I get home.

A lot of the stuff that my father told me not to do, I did it anyway and I ended up learning the hard way.

I’ve had an experience through music that has touched almost every part of me. It educated me in ways that I didn’t get educated in school. So we try to lay on a bit of that, through being funny, being serious, playing hard.

I try not to be too hard on myself. My husband reminds me that life is a marathon, not a sprint.