Hugh Bonneville quotes:

To go to the White House is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In fact, the building is not that big.

After World War II, the major estates really did collapse.

Everyone at some point in their lives feels excluded and misunderstood.

When you are in the eye of the storm, you are often not aware of the whiplash around you.

I'd love to retire somewhere like Winchester, where you have one foot on the pavement but a sense of being in the country as well.

At home I have a Tibetan terrier. I'm still not sure if he's a genius or very thick. It's a fine line.

I think any film that asks its audience a degree of tolerance and acceptance of those less fortunate than themselves isn't a bad thing from whatever culture you're in or from whatever part of any political spectrum.

Am I athletic? In my dreams.

In Britain, the press want to kill a show by revealing what's coming up and spoiling the pleasure.

A typical Christmas is me shucking oysters. I love them and I always get them in at Christmas.

I had girlfriends, but settling down was the last thing on my mind.

You have no idea what's going to happen [in Downton Abbey] until you get the script. We roughly knew a couple of the key points that were going to happen, but when I got the last episode, I turned to the last page to check that I was still alive.

At 19, you know everything; by the time you're 40, you haven't got a clue.

Homosexuality has been around since humanity began and different societies at different times have reacted in a different manner.

The press mainly want to destroy a program by revealing what's coming up. For some reason, soaps like doing that.

We were all expecting to finish [Downton Abbey] after Series 1, actually. And then, it got extended to Series 3, and that's when two of our much loved and much missed friends left. And then, it was going to be done with Series 5, but Julian Fellowes said, "I'd like to do one more." So it's been a series of extensions, rather than wondering how much longer we can go on for.

Young people are so often dissed by the media.

I certainly couldn't run a big country house, nor could I organize the greatest show on earth.

It's never happened to me before, in my career, and never will again. It's a one-off experience. It's a rare treat to have a cast together for six years. Crews come and go, and a few of them have been there throughout, but not many. It's rare, in my experience, after 26 years, to have had a proper company in a show that enjoys each other's company, and who is such a fine bunch of people and actors. To have struck a chord with people, and to have had that combination, is extremely rare.

Certain stories that you want to see resolve in certain ways are, and some aren't, but that's life.

For the last episode [of Downton Abbey], you'll need some handkerchiefs. I needed handkerchiefs reading it. It wasn't because it necessarily moved me while reading it, but it was the experience of reading it when I realized it was the last time I was ever going to be reading one of those scripts. That was quite terminal.

I always try to look for the best in most places.

I do realise how incredibly lucky I am.

I have an excellent internal compass.

In the age of the camera phone it's a bit weird when you're sitting having dinner in a restaurant and people think they're being very subtle taking a photo while in fact they're being very obvious. When you're in a middle of a mouthful with friends or family and people come up asking for a photograph, that's when you want to say, 'Actually, I'm going to say no; I'd like to finish my meal. This is my time.'

I've had people come up to me in the past and say they enjoyed whatever show I've been in.

I've often been the guy who doesn't get the girl.

Julian Fellowes doesn't come to the set, except maybe once every six weeks, for whatever reason. He's not a producer, in that sense. But if you write him a one-line question, he'll write you a three-page answer.