Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
War makes early risers of us all.
I can be as contrary as I choose.
You know, I'm not a revolutionary.
Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.
Most of us don't want to be outsiders.
I just don't believe in generalisations.
Nothing is harder to dramatize than happiness.
Harsh reality is always better than false hope.
What is a week-end? Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey.
Education. Experience. Or are they the same thing?
My mother converted to Catholicism to marry my father.
Life is a game in which the player must appear ridiculous.
I love 'Sex and the City;' I think I've seen every episode.
In the end, drama is successful if you care about the people.
We are usually undone by our lack of understanding of ourselves.
The English country house is certainly an icon of British culture.
Success means your thoughts are worthy of everyones consideration.
The business of life is learning that you can't lay down the terms.
I think other people's depression is frightfully dreary, don't you?
I have derived enormous confidence from being a husband and father.
Success means your thoughts are worthy of everyone's consideration.
You are my whole existence and I will love you until my last breath.
If we don't respect the past, we'll find it harder to build a future.
Of course I love winning things; I can't tell you how much I enjoy it.
I have fits of melancholia when I watch the news, but we all do, don't we?
What you have to understand about period drama is that it's 'history light.
I'm seen as a chronicler of the class system, which I don't think is unfair.
What you have to understand about period drama is that it's 'history light.'
There is almost nothing in your house that does not tell something about you.
I think every period - except for the 14th century, or something - has some merits.
If you're supposed to be a 'personality,' then you might as well have a personality.
I always loved movies and the cinema; we always used to go to see films as a family.
I mean the truth is, I've always been interested in the whole setup of the old world.
You do get fond of your characters. Handing them on is like giving a child to a nanny.
I think American television changed world television in its reinvention of the series.
Ninety-eight per cent of actors who actually make a living do so in front of a camera.
We don't really like rules. We think, in some way, they are an infringement of liberty.
To me, all success is a delightful surprise, since one can absolutely never predict it.
For most directors, the scriptwriter is about as welcome on set as a member of the Taliban.
It's the gloomy things that need our help, if everything in the garden is sunny, why meddle?
I never know which is worse: the sorrow when you hit the bird or the shame when you miss it.
Lawyers are always confident before the verdict. It's only after that they share their doubts.
One of the things that you're not really in control of - apart from everything - is your smell.
Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them.
You never know people, do you? You can work with 'em for twenty years; you don't know 'em at all.
Sometimes the weekend gets hijacked by work, but as my mother would say, this is the right problem.
A lot of actors find it impossible not to ask for the audience's sympathy. They have a need to twinkle.
If there's one thing I don't look for in a maid, it's discretion. Except with my own secrets, of course.
When you are desperate to get someone who isn't all that interested in you, you lay siege as hard as you can.
I don't think I'm an unkind person, I don't think my books are unkind, and I don't think my readers are unkind.