Michelle Gomez quotes:

Jack wasn't my type at all. I thought he was too young and too posh, and I told him that. Plus, I couldn't deal with his dodgy bowl-cut. But he wore me down.

I feel so Scottish when I go abroad, and I'm so proud of it, but for me, it's not a political statement - I just happen to be Scottish.

I'd always used humour as a weapon, as a protection. But being able to make people laugh is a way of not getting in too deep; it's a quick, transient fix.

When you get older, everybody sort of changes and moves away. I think that stands the test of time, when you have a friendship from youth that's still in your life today.

I have no interest in being a celebrity. I wouldn't go to anything that I wasn't involved in just for the sake of wearing a nice frock and having my picture taken. That part of the business doesn't make me feel very comfortable.

There are times when you come across somebody that's really impressive, someone that's got a proper living and really does make a difference to people's lives. Then I do feel a bit of a wanker, admitting I'm an actress. That's hard to say to someone who may be making a difference. But I don't know how I could change things.

The older I get, the more I'm starting to believe in myself. I'm beginning to think of roles that I could do that I would not have allowed myself to think of before, saying: 'That's not for me, that's for the big guns.'

I used to say Edinburgh was a beautiful actress with no talent. I thought it was just like a shortbread tin. I think that's because I did six Festivals in a row there, and I never saw the real Edinburgh, just a lot of deeply annoying Cambridge Footlights kids wanting to be actresses.

For a lot of us, we feel nostalgic about something with distance, and then [when] we go back to that thing, you remember why we left in the first place.

The older I get, the more I'm starting to believe in myself.

I have no real ambition or strategy. If this was all to finish, it's totally fine. There's a lot more to do out there than put on silly frocks and shout for a living. I could always go back to, 'Would you like soup with that?'

I always say: 'If I'm lucky enough to be given the opportunity to work again, that's it, I'm being wheeled on, sitting on a sofa, and someone's going to feed me grapes, and I'm not getting up.'

A good antidote to nostalgia is to go home, and then you remember why you left.

There is such a thing as having too much of a good thing.