Quotes from Kim Cattrall

You know within three seconds if you're going to have a history with someone - it's a long half-hour if you've got it wrong.

My family was going back to England to visit my mother's grandmother, who was very ill. We went up to Liverpool and I met my great-aunt, who was just a force of nature. She was an elocution teacher and a huge enthusiast for theater and the classics. I took her amateur acting class, and she was really impressed with me.

Shows like 'Sex and the City' got women involved again in a political way. They were drawn into the personal stories of the four women who together make up one complete cosmopolitan woman. We want to have community, and the show filled that void in our lives: friendship between women.

I first wanted to be an actress after seeing a play - not a movie.

Once you have a child, that becomes your life, and while that's the way it should be, I sort of have a love affair with my work. Having said that, many of us work far too hard and we don't put enough value in the epicurean, sensual part of life.

It was difficult when I was very young because I was so separated from my family. When I was at school or acting in a play, I felt very much part of something, and then it would always change, and I would be by myself.

I never gave up believing that there was much more to life than how I was living it.

I haven't played a lot of wallflowers but I have played women who have been vulnerable.

If I only did theatre I would have had to waitress, and I didn't want to waitress.

Since doing the show I've been so busy that I've not really had time to mope.

I'm not a personality actress. I never have been. I have been a character actress.

I'm certainly not a prude.

I was very close to my father. At the age of ten I wanted to do plays, and my father was very encouraging. When I applied to different acting schools, he was right there and very supportive.

I like to step outside of what people's idea of me might be. I suppose that makes me a bit of a rule-breaker. I like to take chances.

You have to be desirable. And that's why so many woman of my age or even younger are pushed to Botox and plastic surgery, all the things that people say, 'Why do women do this?' Where do you go in your 50s in your career?

I feel I disappoint people when I am not 'Samantha.' They seem surprised when I don't have the same voice and the same mannerisms. They were booking 'Samantha,' and I would show up.

I prefer younger men. In some ways, they are much more open to a woman being stronger and independent then some of the men my age.

There are many ways to be a mother. I have a lot of young actors I mentor, and my nieces and my nephews need a lot of love.

I always assumed that like my mother before me, one day I would have children.

Art is an expression of who you are. Parts that I play are my sculptures.

I actually think 'Sex and the City' helped share how complicated it all is, to be a wife, a mother, and working, and a sexual being.

A successful television series can chain you to a schedule of long hours and can put your personal life on hold. But after it is all over, if you survive, then anything is possible.

At the beginning of every role I take, I have to start from basics and build it up. It's like a new construction.

I'm a good businessman. I pay my bills. Growing up in a situation where everything counted helps.