Quotes from Miriam Margolyes

I have a silly habit of making knee-jerk and somewhat dogmatic statements which are rapidly proved wrong.

It's a humiliation that you don't forget, and even early in life you learn the pain of rejection because your body isn't wanted.

I've always wanted to know people. It's curiosity partly, because I can't imagine that people are different from me, and yet I can't imagine anyone being the same.

Friends bring out the best in me, and what's what I cherish: they make me feel that I am worth knowing.

Comedy is life, built big perhaps, but always built true.

On the outside, there is all the coquettish pantomime; inside there is the desperate, longing woman.

LA is not my favourite place in the States; I much prefer San Francisco. LA is a strange mix of the exotic and the naff. It's not a city: it's a collection of neurotic neighbourhoods.

I've become more political as I've got older; I haven't mellowed - I've billowed.

I know I'm capable of being outrageous, but I don't do it all the time; at home I'm quiet and boring, preferring to subside into a book or into the computer. I do not have a public persona. I don't assume sweetness for the camera; I'm the same person no matter where I go or what company I'm in. But, like everyone else, I judge which facet of my personality will suit a particular situation and present it. To that extent, I am calculating - but never to conceal, only to reveal.

I refused to be filmed getting off a bus twice. The director said, 'I'm an award-winning director. Please do it', and I said, 'I never thought I'd say this, but I'm an award-winning actress with a bad leg, and if your film depends on seeing me get in and out of a bus, we're in trouble.'

People who were gay were pitied and ridiculed by my parents - they had no modern sense of people being allowed to be who they were.

With television, attention spans have been shortened. It's something we have to fight against: the dumbing down of the audience. To be part of an audience is a privilege. To be with the people on stage, to let them reach you. If you're doing a million other things, they won't reach you.

I think I should be described as 'bi' - not bisexual, because I'm not - I'm gay - but 'binational' because I retain British nationality, and I add to it being Australian, which is like having your cake and eating it.

My feeling is that the English are naturally anti-Semitic.

Unfortunately, I don't know many black people.

In terms of my development as an artist, playing Professor Sprout wasn't all that important because she is well within my capabilities as an actress. But in terms of marketability, it made an enormous difference.

Although my parents both liked her, they just didn't approve of a same-sex relationship. Nowadays, people say that you must let children be what they are, but when I was growing up, the parents defined the child - and my parents had a definite vision of how they wanted me to be.

One of the worst things about ageing is the waning of your physical powers. I live in a house with 64 stairs, and I cannot run up and down them any more; my knee has conked out.

Confidence was the backbone of my upbringing. I was an only child, so I was spoilt, loved, and given an enormous amount of confidence by my parents.

I have a class prejudice - against the upper class, which is foolish.

I was terribly upset not to be in 'Dickensian,' so I pretend to look down on it. The part I should have played, Mrs. Gamp, is done brilliantly by Pauline Collins, but I entered this world for no other reason than to play that part.

I want a comfortable old age and to be looked after - I have arthritis - and money is a factor.

Old people have a much better time in India because they're respected.

As I get older, people do come up to me just to give me a hug.