Miriam Margolyes Quotes

I realised then that life could get up and bite you – and now Covid has got up and bitten us all. I know that kindness and gentleness are the most valuable commodities. Now, more than ever, they demand distribution.

Pockets are essential in my life, and every garment I own must have them.

The wrinkles which have appeared are the honourable traces of my life: laugh lines rather than frown lines.

For the record, I still know nothing about marijuana or any drug, and don't want to. My drugs are chopped liver and cheesecake - probably equally damaging, but they taste better.

Happily, my teenage years behind me, I went to university and there I realised that I had a spark of something that was more valuable than beauty: I had energy, and energy is always attractive.

The goal of life is to end up wiser. But more importantly, I think it should be to end up kinder, both to yourself and everyone around you (unless, of course, their surname happens to be Johnson).

More than anything though, I wanted to have a man's suit, male in every particular. Was I 'butch' as a little girl? No - I simply wanted not to have to wear dresses. Now, I adore the little summer frocks I have, always made to the same pattern. There is a subtle difference between a frock and a dress. Mine are all 'frocks'. They've all been made for me by various wardrobe mistresses on every film and play I've ever done. I look like a throwback to the 1950s but they're comfy and suit me and they ALL have pockets. Pockets are essential in my life, and every garment I own must have them.

You shouldn't fear failure. It's not something that we relish - no one wants to fail - but it may be something that we have to endure in order to improve and succeed.

Being an only child is a curious fate. It cuts you off from your generation, so that my closest observations were linked to my parents.

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I entered a precarious profession where a short, fat, Jewish girl with no neck dared to think she could stand on a stage and be successful.

It’s possible that my insecurity is the very quality that connects me to everyone else. I don’t hide my vulnerability. I don’t know how.

I have a silly habit of making knee-jerk and somewhat dogmatic statements which are rapidly proved wrong.

On the outside, there is all the coquettish pantomime; inside there is the desperate, longing woman.

I've become more political as I've got older; I haven't mellowed - I've billowed.

I decided that I must never let an unhappiness go unremarked or uncomforted again, and if I saw anybody unhappy, I would talk to them.

We are all scared. We are all secretly shaking with fright inside, uncertain of what we should be doing, saying and thinking; anxious about what our lives are going to be. I believe that if you can allay those fears, if you can soothe people, and hug them, and make them feel it's going to be all right, you're doing a public service. Often most of us are too busy, or worried, or tired, or just can't be bothered to take on the difficulties that another person is going through. But if you can, it makes the most enormous difference to try to understand the other person, to try to feel their pain, and to see the world through their eyes.

Friends bring out the best in me, and what's what I cherish: they make me feel that I am worth knowing.

Comedy is life, built big perhaps, but always built true.

LA is not my favourite place in the States; I much prefer San Francisco. LA is a strange mix of the exotic and the naff. It's not a city: it's a collection of neurotic neighbourhoods.

I know I'm capable of being outrageous, but I don't do it all the time; at home I'm quiet and boring, preferring to subside into a book or into the computer. I do not have a public persona. I don't assume sweetness for the camera; I'm the same person no matter where I go or what company I'm in. But, like everyone else, I judge which facet of my personality will suit a particular situation and present it. To that extent, I am calculating - but never to conceal, only to reveal.

That excitement of being in a space with other people all experiencing the same moment, that is the magic of theatre.

It's a humiliation that you don't forget, and even early in life you learn the pain of rejection because your body isn't wanted.

I've always wanted to know people. It's curiosity partly, because I can't imagine that people are different from me, and yet I can't imagine anyone being the same.

My happiest moments, really, are just lying in bed with her and gazing at the ceiling and talking about anything and everything. That's my biggest joy. It may be that we will only actually finally get to achieve that when we're both in an old people's home together. I always had the idea that we would build our own and gather all our friends there, and that's what I'd still like to do. There would be a library and a garden and memories shared. And animals. And a swimming pool, with easy steps down.

And I was in love with him because, when he ended it, I can remember the feeling of being annihilated - a pure, wrenching grief and loss.

...it is the vulnerabilities in people, rather more than their strengths, which allow us to love them.

it is the vulnerabilities in people, rather more than their strengths, which allow us to love them.

Then I saw that he had taken his penis out of his dungarees and he was enthusiastically masturbating. I thought, ‘Blimey, what am I going to do? I don’t want to get raped. Not on the sea.’ So, I got up, went over to him and tossed him off. He was fine after that; he calmed down. The penis was popped back inside the dungarees and then on he rowed, all the way across. When we finally arrived, he helped me up and I asked him how much I owed. He smiled. ‘No charge, Miss.’ Bless him, what a gent!