Judi Dench Quotations

I was in Yorkshire. We were a family of five and I used to be sent sometimes to get the rations for the week and was easily able to carry them back. It was like one egg and a tiny bit of tea.

I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination.

It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it.

Seriously, though, I think I never ceased to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love - I never got over that.

Since Michael died I think I've worked constantly. Friends and colleagues are very sustaining. They're the people who get you through it... It's no good to be on your own.

I've figured out what to do so far, but it's always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting - whoosh! in your face. That's why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.

Some things you know about, you know what the ingredients are - maybe not all of them. But it's up to you to put in the amount. It's up to the director to nag you until you get it right.

I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it.

Because, you know, I can't work a bicycle pump.

My husband was actually very keen that I would become a Bond girl.

I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not employed. That's why, you know, I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not going to be cast again.

Michael died five years ago this January, and the first thing that really struck me about the script was the part about her peeling off from the funeral and just getting into a rowboat and having a real kind of cry where nobody was.

The more I do, the more frightened I get. But that is essential. Otherwise why would I go on doing it?

It actually was a complete departure having a woman playing M. I didn't realize at the time that it would be so noticed.

I am so thrilled to be nominated for something I loved working on every single day.

I don't think about them very much. I think it's good luck if you get them. But I hope it won't affect the film if it doesn't get any. The film stands on its own merits.

I think that there are more films being made with more, you know ... American-English (collaboration) ... It's a pity there's that not that interchange, we can do it so easily,

The thing about not reading scripts and my wanting a director to tell me a story is a risk I need to take. I need that real fear.

It's incredibly moving to hear some of our greatest actors performing Shakespeare.

They wouldn't talk about that, when we met the girls who are still alive. They wouldn't engage into whether or not there was ever an affair between them. They said they were very close.

I'm going to have a bit of a rest and come face-to-face with it all. I think I must do it, and it's time for me to do it now,

... I just had a quick look up and down, like you would.

Everything, every part that you approach has to be somehow rooted in yourself. You have to somehow root everything so that it's not just words coming out of you.

Filming is completely - was totally new to me ... I had a movie career which wasn't supposed to be, so I couldn't be more thrilled. For those who work, parts seem to get more interesting.

I played Iris Murdoch, who had not long died, and I felt the responsibility very heavy on my shoulders.

I feel with this film that as long as we tell Philomena's story and as long as we're true to her, which Jeff and Steve have already done by writing the story... we must not sell her short;. She's a most remarkable woman and all my concern was that we must be absolutely true to her story.

Every experience that you experience yourself you use, because that's our craft.

Having a daughter and a grandson, I certainly could relate to the fact that this child, who you simply dote on, being taken away from you at an early age, and every single kind of emotion you would have to go through.

I felt quite a responsibility when I played Elizabeth I but nobody here remembers her! And then I felt a responsibility when I played Queen Victoria but not many people remember her.

We know about the issue of children being sold and adopted and taken away but what is so extraordinary is how these two people come through something like - how both of them do, in actual fact. I think that she's one of the most considerable people I've ever met, Philomena.

Work certainly does help fill a void.

The Lord Chamberlin was censoring scripts when I first came into the theater.

I don't really want to retire. I intend to go on working as long as I can because I still have a huge amount of energy.

I don't think that care homes are all rotten old places that ought to be shut down.

I need to learn every day.

Never fall out of love with life

I think you've got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other.

I have a completely new knee. It's brilliant. I am not feeling my age at all. I feel about 43, a willowy blonde 43 years old with long legs.

This is just the loveliest news. I'm so happy for everybody involved, and so proud to have been part of the wonderful experience that Philomena has been.

I've got what my ma had, macular degeneration, which you get when you get old.

It is true that there are few plays of Shakespeare that I haven't done.

I wanted to be a set designer when I was young.

I would hate people to think bossy is all I can do.

I work out the other bits, too, but I need to know what I look like, very early on. And then it's like a template; I'll fill that person out. If I get that out of the way, then I'm all right.

I trained as a designer, so I'm always terribly keen about what I'm going to look like.

I don`t like reading scripts very much. I like it better for someone to just explain to me what it is about this story.

I love being part of a company, and telling a story.

Actually, what I miss are people corpsing on stage.

I would like to work with Jack Nicholson, before it's too late.

In contrast, the control you have in a theatre is very attractive to me.

The difficulty with any sort of esteem is that more is expected of you.

Sometimes nudity is gratuitous. We just live in a society where everything goes.

I'm always fearful. … Fear generates in you a huge energy. You can use it. When I feel that mounting fear, I think, 'Oh, yes, there it is!' It's like petrol.

People think you know beforehand when you win an Oscar - I can assure you you don't.

I've always loved painting, although I never show anyone what I've done. Mainly because I don't do it well. But it's like a form of visual diary for me. A way of fixing things in my mind.

The secret of my success is my mother, who was from Dublin. All my relations are in Dublin or in the west, or as I found out, we went to Rostrevor in Northern Ireland to film and I got out, while they changed cars around, and this man said to me: "You know you have cousins in this town? And they're coming down to see you..." And so they did. I'm sorry we didn't go to a lot more places, so that I could find a lot more cousins. So, that was good. It's entirely because my father was also brought up in Dublin. So, that's my link.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

And then it was working with Bob Hoskins, who I had never worked with before - except radio. It was like being given a wonderful meal - full of the things you love most.

I can't read scripts any more because of the trouble with my eyes.

I once said to someone when I was playing Lady Macbeth and they said: "That's tricky, emotionally, what do you do about murdering your husband's cousin?" And there are, of course, things that aren't in your personal repertoire that you have to somehow understand by reading or watching other things and listening to other people talk about them.

It takes courage to recognize the real as opposed to the convenient.

It was good to learn so early. They're not going to be kind to you. You have to do it and get on, and then gulp down and get better.

There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it.

There are very few things that surprise me.

The theater is the thing I love doing most.

In the theatre you can change things ever so slightly; it's an organic thing. Whereas in film you only have that chance on the day, and you have no control over it at all.

Children have become disengaged from nature and we need to reintroduce them to the pleasure that it brings. If we do that they will care for it. Through the simple act of planting a tree we can open their eyes to nature's beauty.

Don't think I am going to let Bob Hoskins take all his clothes off and me not take a look? I just had a quick look up and down, like you would.

Anything that we can do to improve the lives of elderly people is welcome so far as I am concerned.

I'd rather do a part because I want to, not because great things are expected of me.

People seem to have this idea that I've always been very ambitious. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The need for a global structure of control in the form of a world environment court is now more urgent than ever before.

I started off as a theatre designer, and by some extraordinary circumstance I saw something in Stratford-upon-Avon, and realized that that's the kind of design I want, but also that that's the kind of designer I'll never be.

I like to push myself beyond the limit every now and again.

I get sillier as I get older, so I don't know what wisdom means. I can only pass on something that I've been acquainted with and let whomever it is pick the bones out of it

There's nothing good about being my age.

The only real failure is the failure to try.

We get up in the morning. We do our best. Nothing else matters.

One of the benefits of being a mature well-educated woman is that you're not afraid of expletives. And you have no fear to put a fool in his place. That's the power of language and experience. You can learn a lot from Shakespeare.

Most things don't work out as expected, but what happens instead often turns out to be the good stuff.