Maggie Smith Quotes

Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.

There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it's stunning, and there is nothing to match that.

One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting.

I don't think films about elderly people have been made very much.

I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.

Chris and Toby are far too sane to be upset any more.

I like being outside and working with the elements. The elemental aspects of it. The physicality of it.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness.

I do love comedy, and when it's a comedy moment and you can make people laugh, of course it is wonderful.

I loved Robert Altman, so gentle yet naughty! And Julian Fellowes writes so beautifully.

People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all.

I'm hopeless - all I know is that time is going past so fast.

Try not to cry too much because it can be pretty heart-breaking and pretty hard.

It was - it's always very nice to be somebody rather grand.

I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.

The thing is, often press people ask questions that are so personal that even your nearest and dearest wouldn't ask them.

I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.

It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.

I'd done "Gosford Park," a film that Julian Fellowes had written that Robert Altman directed.

I know there is something out there and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad.

When I started acting almost 50 years ago, it wasn't about fame. It was about acting.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.

Where you get people who want to take a picture of you or take a picture of them with you.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

It's funny to be pigeonholed so late in life but there we are.

I think lots of actors are very nervous and shy. I know lots of them who are, and some who aren't of course.

The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.

The last couple of years have been a write-off, though I'm beginning to feel like a person now. My energy is coming back.

Don't be defeatist, dear, it's very middle class.

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.

I have many good friends, but I tend to keep to myself anyway. It's odd, doing things and having no one to share them with.

I fear that I won't work in the theatre again. I'm sad about that. But I won't retire.

I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen.

I'm so moved to hear Celia Johnson again, so lovely.

Old people are scary. And I have to face it. I am old and I am scary.