Quotes from Emma Thompson

Lindsay [Doran] goes round the table and introduces everyone -- making it clear that I am present in the capacity of writer rather than actress, therefore no one has to be too nice to me.

You can't be a great mum and work the whole time necessarily; those two things aren't ideal. We have an awful lot to work on and to debate about in relation to our working lives, because it isn't working for a lot of people, particularly for a lot of women.

I hate the way market forces try to separate us out in to the appropriate demographic - basically in order to sell us things. We need to find stories that we can enjoy together, not separately.

What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together

I am who I am, and there is nothing I can do about that.

I think our hearts are very chemical and we change the way we see people according to how we feel about them. That's what love is, in a way.

My worst quality is impatience.

I understand what it's like to come with your family, and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say, 'She's got her daughter; she's got her husband.' Yeah, but she hasn't got anyone else.

Is love a fancy or a feeling.... or a Ferrars?

A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

Maybe I don't take myself so seriously any more. And I don't care how I'm judged. I'm past all that.

The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.

The trouble is it's very difficult to pin-point the most important thing because Aids affects everyone in different levels of society, differently and you have to respond to it differently.

Marianne Dashwood looks at gray skies and sees blue. That's all very well, and it's not something you ever want entirely to lose. But you must lose a little of it; otherwise you're going to get wet.

Sometimes you'll have some things, and sometimes you'll have other things. And you do not need it all at once; it's not good for you.

I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word-politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.

British aren't really known for their physical loveliness but firemen, generally speaking, are gorgeous.

A lot of very beautiful women can be a pain because all they're thinking about is how they look.

If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.

There is that thing about not working with animals and children - I don't think that's true. Although you should never work with donkeys.

I have to write for everyone. What really fascinates me is how you make films or make stories that can genuinely be shared by different groups.

If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.

The films I've made for children have been my hardest work, my best, because kids deserve the best.

I think people say you shouldn't work with children or animals, but you must only work with children.