Quotes from Maggie Smith

I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.

The thing is, often press people ask questions that are so personal that even your nearest and dearest wouldn't ask them.

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.

If you're lucky, I think you know what you want to do with your life. I think that's a greater gift that any of the gifts you might have when you do know, if you know what I mean. It must be awful to not know what to do.

There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it's stunning, and there is nothing to match that.

I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.

It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.

I'm hopeless - all I know is that time is going past so fast.

I said 'It can't go on' and he said 'No, it can't.' Honestly, I don't think I could have mattered less to him by then. But by then, nothing mattered to him.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.

The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing. I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody. I wouldn't have liked that. Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?

Some people say you have to fight cancer. But it was fighting me. The cure was worse than the disease, and it left me totally exhausted and depressed. I just hid myself away in my daughter-in-law's flat.

I loved Robert Altman, so gentle yet naughty! And Julian Fellowes writes so beautifully.

I think lots of actors are very nervous and shy. I know lots of them who are, and some who aren't of course.

I had been feeling a little rum. I didn't think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don't know what the future holds, if anything.

Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness.

Where you get people who want to take a picture of you or take a picture of them with you.

It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see…I can only hope that's correct, because there's an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others.

I've been playing old parts forever. I play 93 quite often. When you've done it more than once, you take the hint. I think it's a great burden if you're one of those fantastic stars who've always been beautiful; then I think it's hard.

Chris and Toby are far too sane to be upset any more.

Old people are scary. And I have to face it. I am old and I am scary.

I fear that I won't work in the theatre again. I'm sad about that. But I won't retire.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.