I'm not against accents - my husband's from Lancashire and has a rural Lancs accent. We've just got back from Scotland yesterday, and I love that Highland burr.

We have this wonderful language and we don't appreciate it. That's old-fashioned me, but when I went to school, everyone had elocution lessons, not to sound posh but so you could be understood.

Shyness is just egotism out of its depth.

I plant a lot of trees. I am a great believer in planting things for future generations. I loathe the now culture where you just live for today.

I think I'm a better actress for having friends and interests outside the theatre. I wouldn't want to live my life surrounded by other actors all the time.

We always had chocolates and my mother was careful to make sure they were unwrapped in advance so the paper wouldn't rustle in the middle of a performance.

Older people, who just happen to have been around longer, may not be cleverer than the young, but they have seen more.

Everyone wants instant everything, and they want instant success, but I always think you should treat things in the arts like a garden, and let them grow.

I don't feel 'vibes' when I enter a building - don't feel the previous owners looking down on me. But I do know when a place feels friendly.

So often actors only mix with actors, which is quite incestuous, and doesn't give them the insight into how other people work.

With a play, you do it and it's gone. Films always date. Television drama always dates. Television comedy, for some reason, seems to go on.

True sacrifice is merely self-control.

Eventually we will all understand that all wisdom is within us, and as we remember, practice and access this wisdom, we will become our own best teacher.

The worst of Nature brings out the best in our fellow human beings.

Without writing, what would I have become? Nothing. In China the individual used to be treated as a screw or a small cog in the revolutionary machine. I wanted to be a human being with a voice.

The devil wants to convince you that dying is the worst thing. It is very much easier to do what god made you for than not.

From adolescence to death there is something very personal about being a Negro in America.

Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.

Always persevere, always have a great perspective, and always have great purpose in your life

Eventually the Internet will be accessed by PC, television, and wireless devices.

After "Jack Reacher" the parts I didn't like, most of it was silly.