Maggie Smith Quotes

1. (on her second husband, Beverley Cross) I still miss him so much it's ridiculous. People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all. Even in my dream I kept saying to him: "You are dead. You can't be here".


2. I know there is something out there and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad.

3. (on her father) But there was an incredible nervousness about him. You couldn't do this, couldn't do that. Mustn't ride a bike, you'd be bound to fall off. Couldn't swim, you'd most certainly drown. 

4. Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.

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

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

7. There's a difference between solitude and loneliness.

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

9. I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen. I did Desdemona (at the National, opposite Olivier) with great discomfort and was terrified all the time. But then everyone was terrified of Larry.



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

11. 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?

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

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

14. 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.

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

16. One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting.





17. 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.

18. (on her friend Judi Dench) Jude is the most incredibly level person. Generous, understanding. All the things I'd have to work very hard at, Jude is like that all the time. I would love to be like that. And working with Jude you have to try to remember that you ought to be like that.

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


20. 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.

21. 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.

22. I've won two Oscars and I still don't begin to understand film acting.


23. (on acting) I love it, I'm privileged to do it and I don't know where I'd be without it.

24. 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.

25. (on whether she will miss filming "Harry Potter" now that the series is completed) No, it was 10 years, and that's a lot.

26. 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.








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

28. 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.

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






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

31. 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.

32. The last couple of years have been a write-off, though I'm beginning to feel like a person now. My energy is coming back.

33. 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.

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


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