Quotes from Lesley Nicol

I'm very lucky to have a husband who cooks, for a start. It's a good partnership. I met him through a friend, and we just hit it off.

Visiting a show that's already established can be a bit daunting, as they've been a family already, and you're the newbie.

For years, I've felt that there's an inner cook in me just waiting to be unleashed. But I have to confess I'm having an awful lot of trouble finding her in real life.

I took a cookery course. On the examination, I had to cook a cheese omelet with peas and an egg custard. With the egg custard, which was supposed to be a dessert, I forget to put the sugar in, so that's more of a quiche, isn't it?

I wish I could play the piano. I started when I was four and finished when I was five. I got bored. I couldn't tell my left hand from my right back then!

My poor cooking is legendary among my friends.

When I heard I had gotten 'Downton Abbey,' I remember I was standing on a freezing cold street in Manchester where we were shooting the Manchester part of 'West is West.'

I did an O-level in domestic science when I was at school, but on the day of the practical exam, it was a cookery nightmare.

I've been to the White House and had Hilary Clinton push through the crowd to come and meet me. Chelsea Clinton, too.

I inherited my weight problem from my mum. She was always on diets. If there was a box of chocolates in the house, she'd eat half a chocolate, then put the other half back. She loved me, but she did encourage me to diet in my teens.

I guess that is my favorite thing - to make people laugh and also to maybe engage them emotionally and touch them somehow in telling the story.

I don't have any rules when it comes to clothes. I'll wear anything if it fits and looks good.

Coming eyeball to eyeball with a hummingbird on my terrace is as exciting to me as any celebrity I've met as a result of 'Downton Abbey.'

The first meal my husband ever made me was a chicken curry. I have never tasted anything so delicious in my life.

As an actor, you never know where the work's going to come, so you have to be flexible about it.

For many years, I picked the wrong men, or they picked me. I think if you don't feel attractive or worth something as a woman, you attract men who don't really look after you. That's what happened to me, but I realise that those relationships were like a journey, helping me to learn something about myself.

I'm not very good with conventional, prim-and-proper people who are well-behaved, grown-up.

People are always asking me for my favorite recipe, and I have to say, 'I don't really have one.'

My husband is a martial artist, and he thinks it's hilarious that I have a stage-fighting-proficiency certificate. He thinks that's ridiculous. Can't say I've used it much.

When you look back, I think things are as they are meant to be. Timing is very important.

I never imagined I'd go into acting, but I always loved drama, and when I was 16, I discovered the Library Theatre up the road. So I plucked up courage and asked if I could watch rehearsals. It was like Heaven.

The first time I ever got up on a stage, I did a comedy poem. I don't know how I got there in the first place because I was very, very shy.

I was painfully shy as a child.

I get invited to a lot more glamorous parties since I've been in 'Downton Abbey,' which has made me much more fashion conscious.