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.

Ive not cooked Christmas dinner since 1982.

All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.

Once an old woman at my church said the secret is that God loves us exactly the way we are and that he loves us too much to let us stay like this, and I'm just trying to trust that.

I believe that anyone who wants to wear a thong should have to go through an application process.

Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move.

For the worst things of our lives, it is sometimes the best way, to never speak of them again.

Is a faith without action a sincere faith?

I think that people get to a certain point in their life and they think that nothing can change.

Perfect love was that kind of love that made no sense but made everything else make sense somehow. It was raw and unscripted, turbulent and slightly unpredictable.

Illusion is the dust the devil throws in the eyes of the foolish.

In a world of infinite choice if something is not made specifically for me I'm gone.