Sally Phillips quotes:

My first film crush was Mark Lester as Oliver Twist in the Carol Reed film.

I once had a friend who did the hair for sci-fi movies, and after a particularly bad break-up I stupidly went to her salon and told her she could do anything she liked. She dyed the bottom cherry red and the top peroxide blonde.

A Local Government Stationery Store is something to behold. It's like walking through the back of a cupboard into a really dull Narnia.

I think everyone is forgetting what plastic surgery is for - if you have a face-eating tumour, lose a breast or are involved in a car accident, then it's a good idea.

Middle-aged women on telly is a bit of a hot topic - before, we were 27 to 37, and now we're 40 to 50. You do notice as you get older... you go past 35, and suddenly you're playing baddies.

The children break all my jewelry, so everything I wear is cheap - from Topshop or Dorothy Perkins.

Getting a new passport took me a stupid amount of time. I had to go back five times with different photographs because they kept saying I was smiling, which is against the rules. I was not smiling.

My mum's from Yorkshire and my parents aren't snotty or posh - they're very hard workers, both of them.

I would love to have been around in the Keystone Studios days.

Bad impulse buys make you feel grim, don't they? It's like having consumer Tourette's. I gravitate towards austere foreign-language film DVDs when insecure.

My blood runs cold when I hear the 'great news' that we have found a marker for the Down's syndrome gene, which means we can identify it more easily. Why is that good news? It's only good news if you're going to terminate.

The siblings of special needs children are quite special. Absolutely accepting and totally loving, from birth, someone who is different mentally, and has a different way of seeing the world, is a wonderful trait. It's a trait I wish there was another way of getting, but there isn't. And it does involve a degree of not having it fantastically easy.

When I'm a brunette, it's four times harder to hail a taxi. Then I go blonde again, and suddenly there are taxis everywhere.

It's quite confusing being one of the less wealthy people at a posh place.

As a writer myself, my job has very often been to also write on the job. So you get the script and a vague idea of how the scene might work, and you then add funny words or change the script. I'm not the world's best writer or the world's best actor, but I can do that thing where I can fix - or ruin - fix-slash-ruin, add quirk, add value.

People have really strong images of what church is, and it's almost certainly not the same as mine.

When I got pregnant with my first child, I gained nearly 5st. I did a bit of pretending: 'I'm just really small, so I just put on a lot of weight when I'm pregnant.' That is true, but I also ate a lot of cake.

I've got a great relationship with my dad, but I can imagine how annoying it would be if I had to move back into his house.

I'm sorry to say I'm very lizard-like. My skin is dry, so covering my face in greasy antioxidants is a better alternative.

I have a lot of funny friends, though not everyone's funny all the time. Doon Mackichan's my funniest friend in the pub; Nina Conti's the funniest with a monkey.

I always carry a pair of scissors around with me to cut things out of magazines.

If you get 10,000 guys to put their ideal woman into a computer, it still comes out looking like Angelina Jolie.

My mother always worked and thought staying at home was a bit twee, and that you should get your act together and do something useful. Now I think that's the most useful thing you can do: bring up some non-criminals.

What having a Down's syndrome child isn't - and I feel very strongly about this - is a tragedy. All those pregnancy books you read when you are expecting refer to Down's syndrome as if it were the worst possible outcome, and it's not.

I've got spider veins all over my legs, so I wear opaque tights all winter. All sorts of colours.

I can make a virtue of slapdash. Slapdash can give you courage.

One year you go in for auditions, and everybody thinks you're the queen of comedy, and the next year, you're so 'yesterday,' and it's not because you've done anything, or your ability has changed; you haven't been in work because you've been putting on weight and then trying to lose it.

Once you have a Down's syndrome child, you can't conform. In a way, you're free.

All I want to do really is get married and be a matriarch.

I have three boys, so I live in a household full of testosterone.

I start the day with the intention of doing 4,000 sit-ups but then have to work.

A lot of things in 'Parents' I find very truthful.

Comedians have to write to survive because you don't get cast for your beauty.

I definitely used to write a lot at school. Comic poetry and drawings about people.

I don't get star-struck at all.

I dont have the self-discipline for diets; I break rules I set for myself, so I try and eat more healthily, juice more, and avoid sugar.

I don't leave London, really, and I don't do theatre, because I want to put the kids to bed.

I never ever Google myself. That way madness lies.

I tell people that I'm a Christian, but I don't think it's giving an insight into who I am or what I'm about.

I truly would love to be a designer-label girl, but I am very much High Street.

I wasn't hugely popular at school. In fact, I was bullied at school.

I'm a big fan of community, and I think independence is over-rated.

I'm feeling incredibly Botox-tempted as my face collapses around my shoulders.

I'm very devoted to my kids - I'm completely blind to their faults.

Its quite confusing being one of the less wealthy people at a posh place.

Red carpets and dressing up are a part of work that I enjoy less than some people.

The only way I'll ever run a marathon is if I'm involved in the administration.

TV feels quite constipated, and the thing I find particularly difficult is the branding of the channels where it's not 'Is it a good script?' but 'Is it a BBC2 script?'

When I write, I create really absurd situations which become false because I am after the joke.

When I'm depressed, I definitely comfort eat, but I also eat when I'm happy. The only time I don't eat is if I am terribly nervous.