Quotes from Tamsin Greig

I don't ever want to do stuff just for the sake of it.

I have a shallow understanding of what it means to be alive, and I know certain things about parenting and being a wife and doing the school run. I know little bits, but I'm really a paddler on a beach.

I've long thought that for my last meal on earth I will be perfectly happy with a granary loaf toastie with melted crunchy peanut butter and banana.

I suppose I flee to life. I'm most interested when conversations become difficult.

We live in a fast-paced culture where we're asked to make snap decisions all day long, so I suppose cash-point donations feed into the immediacy of our life experience. So it's a great idea. But I think it needs careful handling.

On my mother's side I'm Polish-Jewish, and on my father's side I'm Scottish puffin.

I did used to like trampolining, but I'm probably past it, I think. You need to have a really strong pelvic floor to be good at trampolining, and I've had three children.

I try not to look any further ahead than the next cup of tea. You never know if that cuppa will come or not, do you?

Writers have to be very careful and discerning because so much of the machine is out of their control.

In theatre, there's no time for a proper meal.

Radio listeners often have a very fertile imagination when it comes to body shape.

I've been acting since I could function. I got into acting to get attention as a child.

A lot of middle-aged women are children still trying to find their way.

I work in Britain, where women are allowed to look their age.

There's something in us that lives just beyond our normality - and I think we've all got a song in us. If only we could master that tiny muscle and make it sound listenable.

I'm an actor, and I'm supposed to reflect real people.

Going to rehearsals of school plays got me out of science. It became clear what inspired me and what dampened my spirit. The only other thing I could do at school was trampolining - it didn't seem to have much future in it.

I knew a homeless guy who'd give all the copper coins that people gave him to charity. So I think there's something that makes us want to give. For me, it's quite a selfish luxury: you feel enlivened, deepened and self-nurtured by generosity.

Kids have a great sense of humour. If you don't, you're going to miss out.

I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and... actually, it is fine.'

If a job fell from Heaven that was in America, I'd have a go, but I don't feel compelled to go and hunt it down.

Laughing and crying are very similar. They're an extreme response to life. You see it in children who start laughing hysterically.

I feel like a 16-year-old trapped inside a dead woman's body.

You step over the threshold of your parents' home, and you're instantly transported back to your childhood. It's like time travel. You revert at once to a place of arrested development.