Quotes from Maggie Smith

I know there is something out there, and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad. But I'm not like Shirley MacLaine, who probably believes we were past lovers in another life.

People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all.

The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.

There's this wonderful first assistant and he'll be saying, 'Now Harry goes down among the dragons.' You have to hold yourself together. Because if you lose it for a second then you're sunk.

I like being outside and working with the elements. The elemental aspects of it. The physicality of it.

People think of you differently if you've been in their homes. They think they own you because they watched you while they were eating dinner, or they can turn you up or down, or even freeze you.

I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.

I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.

When I started acting almost 50 years ago, it wasn't about fame. It was about acting.

I don't think films about elderly people have been made very much.

I have many good friends, but I tend to keep to myself anyway. It's odd, doing things and having no one to share them with.

I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.

I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.

It is not your job to make other people comfortable with who you are.

Stop searching yourself trying to understand why someone else treated you the way they did. The answer is not inside you; it's inside them, out of reach.

Start making yourself at home in your life as it is.

Recognize the difference between The End and An End.

Give the present the gift of your full attention.

What is embarrassment but a relative of fear? You've been seen—caught—at being imperfect.

At my age, I don't plan that far ahead. I don't even buy green bananas." Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Being strong, bracing yourself against hurt, can get in the way of actual healing; the real work.

Today I think of myself as a 'recovering pessimist.' I know that optimism is not at odds with wisdom. It's quite the opposite. I think of cynicism as cool but lazy, while hope is desperately uncool—it has sweaty palms and an earnest smile on its face. What I know to be true is that one hopeful person will accomplish more than a hundred cynics. Why? Because the hopeful person will try.

Think about the word 'spell', meaning a state of enchantment or a brief period of time. When a chapter of your life ends, you may feel that a spell has been broken. You may feel disenchanted. But new magic is coming. Better yet, make new magic.