Helen Mirren
Gardening is learning, learning, learning. That's the fun of them. You're always learning.Collection: Learning
The great marriages are partnerships. It can't be a great marriage without being a partnership.Collection: Marriage
Patience can be a good thing - but not necessarily. Sometimes it's not so bad to be impatient. I'm a little bit too polite.Collection: Patience
Humor in a relationship is so important. Many women will say that. Some say, 'If they can make you laugh, it's the sexiest thing on earth.'Collection: Humor
People with Parkinson's are not some weird people on the edge of human experience.Collection: Experience
The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.Collection: Learning
I think we all have a dream of what it would be like not to work and grow heirloom tomatoes, and I do have that dream. It would be lovely. I do love gardening and all of that, but I do love my work.Collection: Gardening
It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way.Collection: Movies
There is that awful moment when you realize that you're falling in love. That should be the most joyful moment, and actually it's not. It's always a moment that's full of fear because you know, as night follows day, the joy is going to rapidly be followed by some pain or other. All the angst of a relationship.Collection: Relationship
I'd describe myself as a Christian who doesn't believe in God.Collection: God
I don't believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you're spending your time doing something worthwhile.Collection: Time
You write your life story by the choices you make. You never know if they have been a mistake. Those moments of decision are so difficult.
The whole thing of clothes is insane. You can spend a dollar on a jacket in a thrift store. And you can spend a thousand dollars on a jacket in a shop. And if you saw those two jackets walking down the street, you probably wouldn't know which was which.
It's great to be queen!
I am quite spiritual. I believed in the fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God.
You can't control how other people see you or think of you. But you have to be comfortable with that.
I think every woman in our culture is a feminist. They may refuse to articulate it, but if you were to take any woman back 40 years and say, 'Is this a world you want to live in?' They would say, 'No.'
We're all idiots when we're young. We don't think we are, but we are. So we should be.
Sometimes nudity is sexy. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes being clothed is more sexy than being nude.
I think a lot of my work has been a weird attempt to liberate myself, but it's not altogether successful.
I don't like the word 'strong,' because a strong character is never an interesting character. A character is made interesting by their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.
There's nothing sexy about doing a nude scene. It's rather uncomfortable. I like dressing up rather than dressing down.
There's no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time.
I learned quite early on in life that we are all two people. And one of those people none of us will ever know.
I still suffer terribly from stage fright. I get sick with fear. Not every night, but at the beginning and on occasion - not necessarily when I'm expecting it. You just have to cope with it - take it on the chin and work through it, trying to use the adrenalin to perform.
Actors are rogues and vagabonds. Or they ought to be.
It's so hard when you're young to look at older people and understand that they have been where you are. It's the weirdest thing. You just can't get your head around that, can you? You can't get your head around the fact that someone who is 60 was once 16, if you're 16. But the fact is they have been, and they remember it.
I have never in my life found myself in a situation where I've stopped work and said, 'Thank God it's Friday.' But weekends are special even if your schedule is all over the place. Something tells you the weekend has arrived and you can indulge yourself a bit.
It's a mystery, that thing about chemistry, because often people who hate each other in real life and hate each other on the set have great chemistry on the screen. And people who love each other in real life and love each other on the set have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever.
I am not too keen on my nose, I don't like my knees, I hate my ankles, I am unsure about my behind, I don't like my legs at all. I am not too sure about my chin, my forehead is a bit dodgy. But, overall, I can live with it.
I don't think it's good to try and change anyone. The trick and the mystery - of relationships and life in general - is to learn to live with the bits you don't like.
I remember thinking, when I was in my early 30s, that this is the best age to be, and I still believe your 30s are a wonderful time.
Two phrases I hate in reference to female characters are 'strong' and 'feisty.' They really annoy me. It's the most condescending thing. You say that about a three-year-old. It infantilises women.
People often ask me whether I prefer theater or film, and the answer is that I prefer the one I'm not doing: The grass is always greener.
I have to say, without sounding like a total tosser, that everything I've learned in life, and that has taken me out of my natural interior life, has been with men. They exposed me to things that I wasn't aware of. I learned from all the guys.
There's a scary moment when you realise you're no longer the youngest person in the room. Especially if you've been a successful young person. That's followed, of course, by the realisation that you're actually the oldest person in the room.
I'm not a communist, of course. But I do think that everything is down to economics. Capitalism doesn't change.
When you're 16, 30 seems ancient. When you're 30, 45 seems ancient. When you're 45, 60 seems ancient. When you're 60, nothing seems ancient.
Working away from my husband for long periods is good and bad. It stops us taking each other for granted and gives us space, but I miss him terribly.
I can't help being Christian because I was brought up in Britain, and the morality of Christianity is part of the fabric of this country.
I still have a Gypsy sense of adventure. I don't think I have slept in the same bed for more than three or four months my whole life. I am always planting vegetables that I never get to eat and flowers that I never see flower. I have always moved around the world.
Wherever I am in the world, if I get free time when I'm filming I always hire a car, take to the road, drive for miles and explore.
Girls go out together to see a chick flick or something. I loathe, I hate, chick flicks.
Any role that's proactive is a great role, and action roles are by their very nature proactive. You get to do stuff. I hate sitting in a corner - I'd much prefer an action role in a popcorn movie rather than pining in a corner not doing anything.
I'll tell you what me scares me is plastic. Plastic bags and plastic bottles and these things. Why does my water have to be in a bloody plastic bottle? The landfill and the ocean. And I don't know, I'm just terrified with the proliferation of plastic.
I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me.
Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.
I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.
I am so happy that I didn't have children. Well, you know, because I've had freedom. And I've so loved my freedom.
The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.