Quotes from Sally Phillips

I'm a big fan of community, and I think independence is over-rated.

I would love to have been around in the Keystone Studios days.

Bad impulse buys make you feel grim, don't they? It's like having consumer Tourette's. I gravitate towards austere foreign-language film DVDs when insecure.

What having a Down's syndrome child isn't - and I feel very strongly about this - is a tragedy. All those pregnancy books you read when you are expecting refer to Down's syndrome as if it were the worst possible outcome, and it's not.

When I write, I create really absurd situations which become false because I am after the joke.

The children break all my jewelry, so everything I wear is cheap - from Topshop or Dorothy Perkins.

One year you go in for auditions, and everybody thinks you're the queen of comedy, and the next year, you're so 'yesterday,' and it's not because you've done anything, or your ability has changed; you haven't been in work because you've been putting on weight and then trying to lose it.

I truly would love to be a designer-label girl, but I am very much High Street.

A lot of things in 'Parents' I find very truthful.

I don't leave London, really, and I don't do theatre, because I want to put the kids to bed.

I'm sorry to say I'm very lizard-like. My skin is dry, so covering my face in greasy antioxidants is a better alternative.

My first film crush was Mark Lester as Oliver Twist in the Carol Reed film.

Middle-aged women on telly is a bit of a hot topic - before, we were 27 to 37, and now we're 40 to 50. You do notice as you get older... you go past 35, and suddenly you're playing baddies.

My mother always worked and thought staying at home was a bit twee, and that you should get your act together and do something useful. Now I think that's the most useful thing you can do: bring up some non-criminals.

As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and a vague idea of how the scene might work, and you then add funny words or change the script. I'm not the world's best writer or the world's best actor, but I can do that thing where I can fix - or ruin - fix-slash-ruin, add quirk, add value.

Red carpets and dressing up are a part of work that I enjoy less than some people.

I start the day with the intention of doing 4,000 sit-ups but then have to work.

My mum's from Yorkshire and my parents aren't snotty or posh - they're very hard workers, both of them.

I'm not sure my achievements have been 'great.'

If you get 10,000 guys to put their ideal woman into a computer, it still comes out looking like Angelina Jolie.

I can make a virtue of slapdash. Slapdash can give you courage.

The only way I'll ever run a marathon is if I'm involved in the administration.