“I would have been a terrible mother because I’m basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.”

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I’m past that age.

Acting is the perfect idiot’s profession.

I like to move fast, and wearing high heels was tough, and low heels with a skirt is unattractive. So pants took over.

If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting.

Only when a woman decides not to have children, can a woman live like a man. That’s what I’ve done.

Enemies are so stimulating.

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

Our Constitution was not intended to be used by … any group to foist its personal religious beliefs on the rest of us.

The only time I am ever miserable is when I do something just for the money.

I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear.

Love fattens on smooth words.

You learn in life that the only person you can really correct and change is yourself.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get — only what you are expecting to give — which is everything. What you will receive in return varies. But it really has no connection with what you give. You give because you love and cannot help giving.

A boy sows a wild oat or two, the world winks. A girl does the same — scandal.

I was brought up by two extremely intelligent people who gave me the greatest gift that man can give anyone, and that is freedom from fear.

I’ve always thought men and women are not too well suited to each other. It’s inevitable that they should come together, but, again, how well suited are they to live together in the same house?

Character is power.

Difficulty attracts the characterful man, for it is by grasping it that he fulfils himself.

It’s obvious that if you’re going to play a character you need to amass information about that person and about their environment or their era that they’re in and use as little or as much as necessary

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

My father’s a character.

Your trauma doesn’t build character, it builds a wall around you.

Give me the character and I will forecast the event.

God is much more concerned about your character than your career, because you will take your character into eternity, but not your career.