Sheila Hancock

“My chin's too big. And my nose - my nose is funny.”

“I love being in my car with Radio 3 on.”

“I like being on my own, but at times when I don't, I'll phone a friend or the grandchildren.”

“Learning a musical instrument is challenging, it demands fine motor skills and coordination. It develops children's listening, thinking skills, imagination and perseverance. It brings out the very best in the children as they work collaboratively with their peers and teachers.”

“Nobody has a completely happy life, unless you're completely imbecilic. Life is mostly pretty awful.”

“I can't do solitude.”

“I love beautiful women. I'm not jealous of them at all.”

“My own efforts at peacemaking have been easy - in fact, rather enjoyable: CND marches, demos, protest meetings in Trafalgar and Grosvenor Squares, and visits to the women at Greenham, especially the glorious day in 1983 when thousands of us embraced the base and pinned beautiful pictures and objects to the ugly wire.”

“I cannot pass by seeing a child shouted at, and people dropping litter. I'm terrible for intervening. There's nothing worse than busybodies like me. I should learn to mind my own business.”

“I always keep my script in the wings - a hangover from my rep days when we had no prompter and, if all else failed, I would make an excuse and rush off the stage to have a quick look.”

“I only wrote one diary to be read by others. I went on an exchange to France, working as an au pair, when I was 14 and in a battered red notebook I wrote my experiences for my father to read later.”

“I love computers. I think it's a miracle that you can type 'coffee stain' into a search engine and get a page of answers, but I don't like the viciousness of the Internet. It gives public voice to quite mad people.”

“My husband John Thaw worked with many directors, some of whom cut their teeth working on the 'Sweeney,' 'Kavanagh QC' and 'Morse' before going on to illustrious careers.”

“There's an incredibly grand attitude towards musicals. I don't understand why my profession is so snooty about it.”

“It is well known that people who are involved with people who have addictive problems have a problem themselves. You are drawn to mad living, a kind of insane thing. It is much nicer when it stops, believe you me.”

“I am a far better grandmother than I was a mother. My daughters would back me up on this. As a mother I was busy, preoccupied and obsessive about John and my life with him. My children got overlooked. But my grandchildren never get overlooked.”

“With cancer affecting one in three people, all of us will, at some point in our lives, experience it - either personally or through a loved one.”

“I would have loved to have been beautiful; to have looked in the mirror and said: 'God you look wonderful.' Do people do that, I wonder. Love what they see in the mirror?”