Madame Bovary is the sexiest book imaginable. The woman's virtually a nyphomaniac but you won't find a vulgar word in the entire thing.

My body has certainly wandered a good deal, but I have an uneasy suspicion that my mind has not wandered enough.

Work hard, do the best you can, don't ever lose faith in yourself and take no notice of what other people say about you.

Of course, the age-old tradition that a star must appear even if he or she is practically dying is an excellent one, but it can be carried too far. I one played a performance of The Knight of the Burning Pestle with a temperature of 103 and gave sixteen members of the company mumps, thereby closing the play and throwing everybody out of work. There may be a moral lurking somewhere in this, but I cannot for the life of me discover what it is.

The Stately Homes of England, How beautiful they stand, To prove the Upper Classes, Have still the Upper Hand.

My importance to the world is relatively small. On the other hand, my importance to myself is tremendous. I am all I have to work with, to play with, to suffer and to enjoy. It is not the eyes of others that I am wary of, but of my own. I do not intend to let myself down more than I can possibly help, and I find that the fewer illusions I have about myself or the world around me, the better company I am for myself.

Fifty-four years of love and tenderness and crossness and devotion and unswerving loyalty. Without her I could have achieved a quarter of what I have achieved, not only in terms of success and career, but in terms of personal happiness.