Julie Andrews

“Garry Marshall is a joy. I feel so utterly safe in his hands.”

“Let me put it this way: I can sing a hell of an 'Old Man River,' way down in the bass.”

“Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.”

“Who would have thought that a story about a professor of phonetics would result in it being probably one of the great shows ever for musical theatre? It's a seemingly odd subject.”

“I'm not very good with some of the more modern songs that have an awful lot of 'doo wah wahs,' if you know what I mean, because I can't do anything with them.”

“I think every young girl at some point in her early life wonders what it's like to be a princess. They like the idea of dressing up and the fun of it.”

“Actually, what I did, because I couldn't make sense of it, and I have to have lyrics that make sense, I decided the best way to sing 'I Have Confidence' was to go completely nuts with panic and fear.”

“The loveliest roles, for me, have a growth arc - a beginning, a middle, and an end - and I'm always grateful when I can find one of those emotional journeys.”

“I don't want to be thought of as wholesome.”

“When I did 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins' and 'The Americanization of Emily,' all three were in the can and had not yet been released. So I was driving around having a fine time learning about how to make movies and enjoying myself enormously, and then they were released, and it was quite an assault, in a way.”

“I really feel very blessed, and I don't forget it, either; there's an awful lot of wonderful talent in this world, and I just seem to be in the right place at the right time.”

“I do get a lot of gifts. I get a lot of things to sign, too. People do collect the memorabilia. Between 'Poppins' and 'The Sound of Music,' there were beautiful plates that they made, and I've signed a lot of them.”

“I was named after my two grandmothers - Julia Elizabeth.”

“All careers go up and down like friendships, like marriages, like anything else, and you can't bat a thousand all the time.”

“I had toured around England endlessly throughout my teens, but when I came to the U.S. to perform on Broadway, that was a huge step.”

“Whenever I think of my birthplace, Walton-on-Thames, my reference first and foremost is the river. I love the smell of the river; love its history, its gentleness. I was aware of its presence from my earliest years. Its majesty centered me, calmed me, was a solace to a certain extent.”

“How dare one act like a diva when you have a lot of work to do and you need to find your disciplines and so on?”

“I would be a fool to deny my own abilities.”

“I had no education whatsoever, and my mother said, 'Oh, you'll get a much better education in life.' I did to some extent, though I always wish I could have tried it.”

“Singing has never been particularly easy for me.”