Quotes from Diana Rigg

There is always one thing that turns you into an icon, an iconic image: in my case, a catsuit. But the icon 40 years later doesn't really want to know because it's not relevant to me.

Critics have to sit through an awful lot of rubbish, and you feel really sorry for them. In fact, I've been in a play where I felt sorry for the critics.

If you have a good inner life, you don't get lonely. I've got a good imagination. I don't miss romance.

An awful lot of actors shy away from the uglier aspects of the human condition. They want to be liked, which is a cop-out. You've got to go for it.

I never relied on my beauty for anything. It was one of those things that was inevitable; you have a bit of philosophy about it. I didn't go into mourning.

Do you know, I have no idea how I got 'The Avengers'? I'd left the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I was one of a long list of girls, and got it on my audition.

If a man holds a door open for me or pulls back a chair so that this old bag can sit down, I'm delighted. Women who moan and carp about that sort of thing are stupid

Some of those early photographs of me might as well be sepia. It's always thought that I disclaim television and am too theatre, but the truth is 'The Avengers' bores me now. I was grateful because it catapulted me into stage stardom. It was good. I'm not ashamed of it. But I only did it for two years.

I was nourished and nurtured at Stratford as a very young actress. They guided me and forgave me!

I've been in the business 60 years, and it's taken me this long to play a scene with a monkey. That's what happens if you stick around.

I made a bit of a stink. At the time, it was considered very bad form.

I loved the idea of playing this naughty old bag, offering her own explanation. It's my idea of heaven.

I've been single forever, and, oh God, I love every minute of it. I don't wish to sound offensive, and it always does when women say that, doesn't it?

It may be a masculine attitude to take lovers, but it's definitely prevalent. I'm certainly not the oldest person doing it - not that I'm doing it right now, but when I was.

When my marriage broke up, I went to three separate therapists, and each was worse than the last. I can only speak for myself. There are other people it's been incredibly useful for, but not me.

I've been utterly and completely castigated from time to time.

I cry all the time. Remembrance Day in particular. In fact, anything to do with veterans makes me sob.

I think women of my age are still attractive.

If you're earning equal pay to a man, you get respect. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

Working keeps me young. Anything that exercises the brain like learning lines.

I never get lonely; even as a child, I didn't.