Quotes from Miriam Margolyes

My home in Adelaide was the Adina Hotel.

I can't recall a bad review - maybe I'm due one. But the worst thing would be if somebody said I was inaudible. Reach your audience's ears - only then can you reach their hearts.

I know that a lot of my life is spent thinking about crisps and eating crisps and hating myself for eating crisps. It's just not worth it. Or it wouldn't be if crisps weren't so delicious.

My partner of 45 years is Australian, and a big part of her character is that marvellous quality of irony which Aussies possess. I relish their humour and sense of fairness.

If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, I would say, 'Lose weight.'

Anti-Semitism is a rotten thing. It's an ignorant, stupid, horrible thing. As is anti-Muslim feeling. They have to be together.

I may have a talent for acting, but I am incapable of doing anything else.

I'm a silly little needy person sometimes, and I crouch in a room all alone and think of all the people that I wish were with me.

Adelaide's charms are compelling. It's not a huge place; the size is manageable, the traffic absurdly light.

While researching my ancestry I have unearthed many skeletons. It would seem that I come from a long line of ne'er-do-wells, especially on my mother's side.

Glenda Jackson called me an amateur in 1976 when we were in a play, 'The White Devil.' I've never forgiven her.

I was waiting for a train at Waverley Station in Edinburgh. My knee was hurting, so I asked a young man for his seat. He replied, 'There's one over there'. I said, 'Please', and when he refused I poured my water over him.

The curious thing is that I embraced homosexuality with as much joy and delight as I've embraced everything else in my life.

I had a very good kiss from Bob Monkhouse once. I thought, 'If I was straight, I would go for Bob.'

I've been very lucky - I've worked consistently, and I haven't had to kiss a lot of people on stage.

I realised then that life could get up and bite you – and now Covid has got up and bitten us all. I know that kindness and gentleness are the most valuable commodities. Now, more than ever, they demand distribution.

For the record, I still know nothing about marijuana or any drug, and don't want to. My drugs are chopped liver and cheesecake - probably equally damaging, but they taste better.

Happily, my teenage years behind me, I went to university and there I realised that I had a spark of something that was more valuable than beauty: I had energy, and energy is always attractive.

The wrinkles which have appeared are the honourable traces of my life: laugh lines rather than frown lines.

The goal of life is to end up wiser. But more importantly, I think it should be to end up kinder, both to yourself and everyone around you (unless, of course, their surname happens to be Johnson).

I decided that I must never let an unhappiness go unremarked or uncomforted again, and if I saw anybody unhappy, I would talk to them.

I entered a precarious profession where a short, fat, Jewish girl with no neck dared to think she could stand on a stage and be successful.

It's possible that my insecurity is the very quality that connects me to everyone else. I don't hide my vulnerability. I don't know how.

That excitement of being in a space with other people all experiencing the same moment, that is the magic of theatre.