Judi Dench Quotes

Most things don't work out as expected, but what happens instead often turns out to be the good stuff.

One of the benefits of being a mature well-educated woman is that you're not afraid of expletives. And you have no fear to put a fool in his place. That's the power of language and experience. You can learn a lot from Shakespeare.

I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it.

I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination.

I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not employed. That's why, you know, I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not going to be cast again.

My husband was actually very keen that I would become a Bond girl.

Children have become disengaged from nature and we need to reintroduce them to the pleasure that it brings. If we do that they will care for it. Through the simple act of planting a tree we can open their eyes to nature's beauty.

We get up in the morning. We do our best. Nothing else matters.

The only real failure is the failure to try.

The more I do, the more frightened I get. But that is essential. Otherwise why would I go on doing it?

There's nothing good about being my age.

I get sillier as I get older, so I don't know what wisdom means. I can only pass on something that I've been acquainted with and let whomever it is pick the bones out of it

Everything, every part that you approach has to be somehow rooted in yourself. You have to somehow root everything so that it's not just words coming out of you.

It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it.

Never fall out of love with life

I like to push myself beyond the limit every now and again.

In the theatre you can change things ever so slightly; it's an organic thing. Whereas in film you only have that chance on the day, and you have no control over it at all.

Don't think I am going to let Bob Hoskins take all his clothes off and me not take a look? I just had a quick look up and down, like you would.

The need for a global structure of control in the form of a world environment court is now more urgent than ever before.

I was in Yorkshire. We were a family of five and I used to be sent sometimes to get the rations for the week and was easily able to carry them back. It was like one egg and a tiny bit of tea.

The theater is the thing I love doing most.

Anything that we can do to improve the lives of elderly people is welcome so far as I am concerned.

It takes courage to recognize the real as opposed to the convenient.

I'm always fearful. … Fear generates in you a huge energy. You can use it. When I feel that mounting fear, I think, 'Oh, yes, there it is!' It's like petrol.

There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it.

I think you can teach people a technique - you can teach them how to use their voices, how to breathe properly, how to move their limbs a certain way. But to actually explain how one performs comedy or drama or tragedy isn't the same as the movements one makes.

There are very few things that surprise me.

People seem to have this idea that I've always been very ambitious. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I've always loved painting, although I never show anyone what I've done. Mainly because I don't do it well. But it's like a form of visual diary for me. A way of fixing things in my mind.

I need to learn every day.

I felt quite a responsibility when I played Elizabeth I but nobody here remembers her! And then I felt a responsibility when I played Queen Victoria but not many people remember her.

Sometimes nudity is gratuitous. We just live in a society where everything goes.

I once said to someone when I was playing Lady Macbeth and they said: "That's tricky, emotionally, what do you do about murdering your husband's cousin?" And there are, of course, things that aren't in your personal repertoire that you have to somehow understand by reading or watching other things and listening to other people talk about them.

Some things you know about, you know what the ingredients are - maybe not all of them. But it's up to you to put in the amount. It's up to the director to nag you until you get it right.

The secret of my success is my mother, who was from Dublin. All my relations are in Dublin or in the west, or as I found out, we went to Rostrevor in Northern Ireland to film and I got out, while they changed cars around, and this man said to me: "You know you have cousins in this town? And they're coming down to see you..." And so they did. I'm sorry we didn't go to a lot more places, so that I could find a lot more cousins. So, that was good. It's entirely because my father was also brought up in Dublin. So, that's my link.

I'd rather do a part because I want to, not because great things are expected of me.

And then it was working with Bob Hoskins, who I had never worked with before - except radio. It was like being given a wonderful meal - full of the things you love most.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

I have a completely new knee. It's brilliant. I am not feeling my age at all. I feel about 43, a willowy blonde 43 years old with long legs.

People think you know beforehand when you win an Oscar - I can assure you you don't.

I started off as a theatre designer, and by some extraordinary circumstance I saw something in Stratford-upon-Avon, and realized that that's the kind of design I want, but also that that's the kind of designer I'll never be.

I am so thrilled to be nominated for something I loved working on every single day.

Seriously, though, I think I never ceased to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love - I never got over that.

Every experience that you experience yourself you use, because that's our craft.

Actually, what I miss are people corpsing on stage.

I can't read scripts any more because of the trouble with my eyes.

I trained as a designer, so I'm always terribly keen about what I'm going to look like.

I would hate people to think bossy is all I can do.

I've figured out what to do so far, but it's always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting - whoosh! in your face. That's why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.

I don't really want to retire. I intend to go on working as long as I can because I still have a huge amount of energy.