I guess that is my favorite thing - to make people laugh and also to maybe engage them emotionally and touch them somehow in telling the story.

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.

Alcohol does not solve problems but becomes a problem in itself

When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was.

Charm is that extra quality that defies description.

When Donald Trump in one speech said I love the poorly educated - which was a remarkable thing to say - he was saying those are my people.

I'm concerned with not ever being fashionable.

"Not sure," he retorted; "you call yourself a journalist, and admit there is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!"

You will understand a great truth when you get to realize that what you do to others, you are doing to yourself.

I will say that Lynda Carter is an awesome woman.

There are only twelve tones and they need to be treated carefully.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.