Quotes from Joanna Lumley

I am mean as cats' meat about handbags: mine don't ever look chic. I always prefer bags that aren't made of leather.

Women are very different to men, and that hasn't been respected. So when people say there's never been a good woman painter or poet or engineer or whatever, they don't understand that our skills are many simultaneously and men's skills are single.

I used to panic and get rattled when I was young, but as I've got older, I've started literally to live day to day. With age, you work out what matters.

Cameras love pretty girls and craggy, old character men more than they can take craggy, old character women. But that's what's always happened. Work out how you can fit into it, and make that work. There are never going to be millions of parts for older actresses because there never were.

As soon as you reach a certain age, you're thrown onto a kind of mental scrap heap.

China invaded Tibet. It invaded it. So all this nonsense about them being the same country is absurd. It's called Tibet. If it was part of China, it would be called China, wouldn't it?

Clothes that are too tight make you look bigger. If you've been trying to shed pounds, and it doesn't go, buy the next size up. I never care what size my clothes are.

I'm very good at getting up in the morning - so much of my life has been spent on film sets where we start at the crack of dawn.

All the trouble you will cause by not leaving a will. All the heartache! Family feuds are going to happen anyway, so be as clear as you can. And even if it's only to leave it to the cat's home, make a will.

I don't do girlfriendy sort of things, like shopping or going to spas. Spas fill me with horror. Frankly, I'd be more interested in doing a walk through the sewers of London!

Giraffes are fairytale animals, almost heraldic - as if from the land of fables. They have extremely beautiful faces, huge eyes, very sensitive nostrils and oh, blue tongues!

I haven't got a very sweet tooth, but I love salted things like nuts. I would have to be dragged in by a lorry if I ate as many salted peanuts as I would like to.

If you're an enthusiast and you love the world like I do, it comes naturally. But I think charity must become more fun to give, more interactive and imaginative.

Though I was a mother at 21, being a grandmother makes the whole thing absolutely normal and gorgeous. The relief, the joy of being a grandmother is wonderful.

Buy an atlas and keep it by the bed - remember you can go anywhere.

We've forgotten to respect clothes and consider who made them and where the material came from. We've been encouraged to buy things and, if we don't like them, bin them. When I grew up, we'd repair things or alter them.

I'd been a Bond girl and in Dracula films and 'Coronation Street,' but I was always hunting for work. After 'The New Avengers,' I never had to wait for work again.

I could never go into politics, because I'm far too impatient and I'd want to be a dictator, albeit a benevolent one... I would hope.

I have a toy giraffe on my bed. I've got photographs over my desk as well as a mask of a giraffe in my kitchen. I am totally hooked.

You have to feel more involved than just writing out a cheque. Charity is almost the wrong word - I think people are beginning to feel more responsible for the world.

I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'

Giraffes are completely tranquil - they have no predators as adults because there's not an animal in the jungle stupid enough to go for them.

It's an incredibly difficult thing to bring a giraffe down. They can kill a lion with a single blow from their feet.

The Treorchy Male Choir's version of "Myfanwy" is one of the most glorious things I've ever heard in all my long life. Love and congratulations to you all.