Judi Dench quotes:

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 I was easily able to carry them back. It was like one egg and a tiny bit of tea.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I'm very conscious that I'm in the minority in that I love what I do. How big is the number of people who are running to work to do a job that they like? And how lucky to be employed at it - how incredibly lucky.

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.

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

Frankly, I never had any intense desire to go to India. I know that sounds a bit strange, but it just never was someplace I had a burning desire to visit.

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

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

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

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 need to learn every day.

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

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

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

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.

The only real failure is the failure to try.

There's nothing good about being my age.

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

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

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.

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

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

The theater is the thing I love doing most.

There are very few things that surprise me.

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.

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

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

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

Never fall out of love with life

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

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.

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.

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

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

Actually, what I miss are people corpsing on stage.

Work certainly does help fill a void.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.