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.

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.

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.

We can't escape the shadow, so the best thing we can do is notice the light and be open to it.

I had a very good English teacher who said to me that she thought I ought to do it. She - I don't know, she saw something thank goodness because I think if it hadn't been encouraged by somebody that serious, I'm not sure what would've happened to me.

I'd done "Gosford Park," a film that Julian Fellowes had written that Robert Altman directed.