Quotes from Julie Andrews

I've got a good right hook.

I think that the best way to explain that is that my mother gave me all the color and character and flare and liveliness, and my father gave me all the sanity and nature and all the things that helped me be a more rounded human being.

I love my garden. I love my privacy. I'm very fierce about it. I try not to let too many people into my home. That's my private place.

More than anything, the arts are the best teaching tool.

If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.

There are elements of me in the roles I've played in the past. But people forget that Mary Poppins was just a role, too.

Singing has been a cherished gift, and my inability to sing has been a devastating blow.

I had toured around England endlessly throughout my teens, but when I came to the U.S. to perform on Broadway, that was a huge step.

I did a lot of touring in my youth, and I learnt very quickly that giving is what it's all about. It's about the gift of making an audience feel great and forget their cares, if only for a few hours.

Touring itself - and I was very young, and a lot of it I did by myself - it's lonely, but it does give you some kind of spine, I think. It does give you some kind of grit.

As a rule, my focus is on classical music, but I love jazz. I love everything, actually.

I love singing, and I came to absolutely adore it in the later part of my career.

It's all about giving back, helping people and encouraging people. I love to do that.

All love shifts and changes.

Whenever I think of my birthplace, Walton-on-Thames, my reference first and foremost is the river. I love the smell of the river; love its history, its gentleness. I was aware of its presence from my earliest years. Its majesty centered me, calmed me, was a solace to a certain extent.

I think birth and motherhood are not things that you're trained to do. You might have a good example in your own mum, but nobody teaches you how to be a really great mum.

Let me put it this way: I can sing a hell of an 'Old Man River,' way down in the bass.

My mum gave me pretty good genes in that department. She had gorgeous skin. That good English complexion. She never seemed to have a blemish that I knew of.

I play with my grandchildren. I tend to my garden, which I love. Of course, I love to read, and family is really what it's all about.

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.

I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on.

As you become older, you become less judgmental and take offense less. But marriage is hard work; the illusion that you get married and live happily ever after is absolute rubbish.

I've learned things about myself through singing. I used to have a certain dislike of the audience, not as individual people, but as a giant body who was judging me. Of course, it wasn't really them judging me. It was me judging me. Once I got past that fear, it freed me up, not just when I was performing but in other parts of my life.

I'm more contented and at peace with myself now than I was as a box-office queen. I'm less uptight. I've even reached a stage where it doesn't shatter me if somebody prints something bad about me.