Brenda Fricker

“I don't want to live to be 100.”

“Clinical depression passes but it's tough, it's very tough.”

“As long as I can have a roof over my head and feed the dog and feed myself, I'm perfectly content.”

“I found my sudden fame like going through the eye of a storm. It was quite frightening.”

“I really am a well-adjusted human being.”

“It can be very dark. I turn the phone off and put the blinds down. I do pre-record some good programs and I have my dog and I get myself through it that way. I don't want to be sounding kind of negative but it is a different kind of Christmas, that's all.”

“You have to be very, very tough and I got tired of being tough - it's not in my nature. I was constantly standing up for myself because you have to fight for your place, that's your job.”

“All we ever want is a story, that's all you want. So, you give a fairly long speech to somebody to tell a story, Shakespeare did it for goodness' sake, the good writers do it but they don't do it for television for some reason.”

“The audience is always being underestimated.”

“While I don't find Christmas all that difficult, what I do find difficult is New Year's Eve.”

“You don't own anything at all except your life.”

“I was quite rich at one point, when I was 'hot' and earning big, big cheques and everything else. But I've never been materialistic. I always had a little car, little house, little dog That was it. I bought an obligatory mansion in the country back in the day and got so embarrassed I sold it very quickly.”

“I didn't like Los Angeles. I don't like the heat and I found it uninteresting. I wasn't comfortable there.”

“I lived off my savings while they lasted, but now I'm completely broke.”

“Rumours are going around that I am difficult to work with.”

“I suffered from depression for 50 years. But now I go to a therapist once a week, purely to have a conversation and to hear another human voice.”

“I'd like to thank Christy Brown just for being alive. I'd like to thank Christy's mother. Anyone who gives birth 22 times deserves it.”

“I'm not a high-energy person.”

“With Virginia on 'A Long Way From Home,' she was directing for the first time. She had full knowledge of what she was doing, and she was very, very good with the actors. We talked privately about what to do. She trusted that you had read the script and understood it and had the intelligence to act the part. I think that always gets good results.”

“I would like to have had children, because I think that's what it was all about.”