If a person is found dead here, a postmorten will always reveal whether he has spent less than three weeks in the city. That is the length of time it takes this pollution to invade the body, after which it is there forever.

I think of all the choices I never knew. And those I let be made for me - to please, from fear, for love. Where did they disappear to, those choices that I never made? They are all part of who I am. They are the legacy I leave behind, they are the finished portrait of myself I cannot change.

I can't expect people to decide that they will change with me, so I can see why I'm on the old side.

The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for.

Soon I will be an old, white-haired lady, into whose lap someone places a baby, saying, "Smile, Grandma!" - I, who myself so recently was photographed on my grandmother's lap.

I have the experience of age and suffering.

Yeah, unfortunately [ films like Miss Julie are a dying breed]. And that is sad, because we need these. Like we need books, we need classical music, we need ballet, we need opera, to remind us really of who we are and why we are, and we need in movie houses - even to be in a movie - where you sit and see not only excitement and man-hero, woman-hero, you need quietly, just like that Hawking movie we talked about, to know how people overcome.