Sheila Hancock

“I can't think of anybody among the greats who isn't constantly looking at themselves and feeling dissatisfied. You're greedy in this business: always wanting to prove you can do more. I don't ever remember a time when I've said, My God, I've cracked it - this is lovely.”

“I would love to enjoy leisure, but I find it very difficult to sit down and do nothing.”

“I've been lucky enough to love dearly the people I cared for, but even then there were times when I thought, 'I can't bear any more.'”

“Just as our bodies need to be exercised, so, perhaps, do our brains.”

“Alcoholics are utterly dear one minute, but there is also a blanket hatred with which you cannot reason.”

“On the whole, I think journalists have been kind about me, but they do make me sound a bit of a dreary cow. There seems to be so much suffering in my life.”

“As a Quaker, I aspire to be a pacifist.”

“I do think that people leave 'vibes' behind, and the best that I can hope is that I leave a few good vibes, as well as the bad ones.”

“I do like Christmas but the build-up is ludicrous. Such a kerfuffle about two meals and a few presents.”

“I think when you're coping with grimness perhaps you do get sillier and more escapist in what you want to see at the theatre.”

“I'm actually involved with DigiSmart, a project to get nine-11-year-olds to love books.”

“My first husband Alec was a very good-looking man, but by the time he came out of the war, his sort of acting was no longer in demand - although he was a working-class boy, he was actually very good at suave handsome-men parts. I began to get successful when he was out of fashion; it was agony to watch him.”

“I don't like to let people down.”

“I've been married to two mad, bad, dangerous-to-know men and it was good.”

“When you lose someone you have two choices. You can stay stuck where you are or you can say, 'I am now on my own, my life has changed and I need to change the way I operate.'”

“There isn't a carer in the world who doesn't say, 'I hate it. My life is being ruined. I didn't see my life like this.'”

“I was terribly ambitious: I was always thinking why wasn't I in the West End. I really wasted my whole youth.”

“If you're creating a story, it's a lovely sort of secret thing going on in your head.”

“On 'The X Factor,' they deliberately have people on that are awful just to laugh at them.”

“I wouldn't dream of giving any human being marks out of 10 on two hours' acquaintance.”